Constitutional Crisis of 1880

Arracian troops march into the capital city of Ciavar

### Result

**Victory for Pro-Imbesi Forces*** A national state of emergency is declared and for a brief period, rule by decree is implemented before the People's National Congress is recalled to session which repeals some extreme policies of Imbesi
* President Rigano is impeached in an impeachment trial of dubious legality
* Vice-President Imbesi becomes de-facto 5th President of Arracia
* Enzo di Pasqua gains prominance in the Republican People's Front
* Democratic norms and structures are greatly weakened
* The authority of the Supreme Court is questioned and rejected, weakening their overall authority
* Military involvement in politics noticably increases, starting clashes with the civilian government
* The downfall of the Arracian conservative movement (1860s - 1880)
* The 1880 Arracian Presidential Elections
* The rise in populist movements and sentiments in the North and South of Arracia
* The mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ralencian men, women, and children in Operation Axiom that would be held-up by the di Pasqua adminstration

## Belligerents

### Aggressor(s)

**Pro-Imbesi Movement*** Irrendentist Caucus of the Arracian Unity Party
* Progressive Caucus of the Republican People's Front
* Armed Forces of the Republic of Arracia
	+ Navy of the Republic of Arracia
	+ Army of the Republic of Arracia
		- Presidential Guard Brigade (From August 1st)
* Pro-Imbesi protesters and agitators
* Various federal and provincial law enforcement (allegedly)

### Defender(s)

**Government of the Republic of Arracia*** Presidency of the Republic of Arracia
	+ Presidential Guard Brigade (Until August 1st)
* Non Imbesi-Aligned Members of the National People's Congress
* Loyalist members of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Arracia
* Pro-Government Protesters and Agitators
* Organized Provinicial Militias (Greater Ciavar, Vellen, Bezian, Ciengar, Meniera, Vicente)

## Commanders and Leaders

### Aggressors

*Vice-President* Arcadio Imbesi
 *Marshal* Tomasso Pasternostro

### Casualties and Losses

Several hundred dead or wounded* 52 local officials left killed and over 200 wounded
* Two provincial governors wounded
* 32 members of provincial militias dead; 102 wounded
* 13 soldiers of the Arracian Armed Force wounded

The Constitutional Crisis of 1880 describes a series of legal disputes and political actions that culminated in the deposition of the Rigano Administration (1872-1880) and a series of engagements which many describe as a military coup, culminating in the inauguration of, at the time, Vice-President Imbesi to the Presidency, making him de-facto 4th President of Arracia, the rise of progressive figures such as future president Enzo di Pasqua, increased military involvement in politics, and the end of the Arracian conservative renaissance.

## The Crisis

### Beginning

The Constitutional Crisis began on July 29th, 1879, when Vice-President Imbesi had made a private appeal to military leaders to depose President Rigano, who had signed into existence the at-the-time secret Treaty of Winstanley with Kremwell, that would significantly reduce the size of the Arracian Army (the Cassation Accords) and Navy (the Palmedo Clause) earlier that day. The Grand Marshal of Arracia, at the time the highest ranking military official in the Armed Forces, agreed and a pact was struck. The next morning, the 15th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division "Tordazia" of the Arracian military would proceed to march upon Cíavar, arguing that the elected government had,

> *"Failed in its mission to ensure, protect, and defend the Constitution of the Republic of Arracia, allowing enemies, foreign and domestic, greater ability to infringe on the sovereignty of the people…”*
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To the outrage of the public and press, as well as the citizenry of Cíavar, the Arracian Army proceeded to march into the city, unopposed, wresting control of law enforcement from the city's limited garrison and police department. They would then make a beeline towards the People's National Congress Building, arresting 147 congressmen, and placing them under house arrest. In the meantime, other sections of the Brigade, which had now divided and spread out all across the city, moved to arrest President Rigano, entering into a several hour-long stand-off with his Presidential Guard, another military unit, that would only end when officers in the guard receptive to the Grand Marshal's demand revolted against their commanding officer, and giving up President Rigano. Before this however, the distraught President had given a desperate call to President Imbesi, recalling him to the capital and urging him to bring loyal units, believing him to be still loyal. Unfortunately for him, he would learn the hard way of his Vice-President's long-held disloyalty to him.

### Vice-President Imbesi Seizes Power

By the late afternoon of August 2nd, just 12 hours after the coup had started, President Imbesi arrived via train into the capital. However, instead of bringing loyal military units, he brought army and naval infantry units loyal to himself. To the nation's horror, they joined with the already-existing army units in the capital, declaring theirs, and Imbesi's allegiance with the coup. Just 2 hours later, Rigano's personal guard would surrender him to the army, which had surrounded the Presidential Palace, and threatened to blast it open with heavy artillery.
Imbesi would take immediate action to secure control over the situation. Gathering his Irredentist Caucus, and strangely the Progressive Caucus of the RFP, led by Enzo di Pasqua, he would call for an extraordinary session of the PNC. In a unanimous and widely condemned vote, commemorated by the Cíavar Observer as the, "most controversial hour in Arracian history…" Vice-President Imbesi proceeded to impeach President Rigano on the charges of treason and a high misdemeanour, sentencing him to imprisonment in an Arracian federal prison. Somehow topping this dubious legal act, President Imbesi would declare himself President, swearing himself in at his podium using his personal chaplain — becoming the de-facto 4th President of Arracia. Many in the public expected the military to step up to the plate and stop this madness. Instead, as more troops piled into the capital, they aided and abetted in Imbesi's activities. It became rapidly clear that there had been a conspiracy behind closed doors.

### The Instability Period (August 3rd - August 6th)

At 5AM the next morning, the news broke. Newspapers all came out with suspiciously positive coverage of the new "presidential transition", decrying Rigano's "high treason" and celebrating "the birth of a new Arracia." Understandably, numerous governors, including the governors of Sa Vellen, Bezian, Ciengar, Meniera, and Vicente decrying President Imbesi, heavily lobbying the government in Cíavar and ordering their respective regions to stop delivering tax revenue, documentation, and other key reports to the capital in Ciavar. This protest would be met with fire and fury by President Imbesi. That night, in what many describe as a "drunken rage", he ordered that the Army be deployed to the capitals of these regions, armed with heavy howitzers to "blow those sons of bitches out of their mansions (according to an aide close to President Imbesi)." Aids, reportedly too scared to defy the order, considering the city was swarmed with soldiers of the Armed Forces and Imbesi had descended into a state of complete drunkenness, they proceeded to mail his orders, prompting Army units to move to the capitals of these respective provinces, and so began the Sieges of Sa Vellen (1879), Sa Cienga (1879), Alsard (1879), and the Battle of Bezian (1879). In an interview conducted in 1921, surviving aide, Demicco Solovon stated of the incident, *“The man was red in the face with the rage to match it. He was smashing bottles all over, and frankly, none of us wanted to end up the same way as Congress, so we typed out the messages and mailed them. What else were we meant to do?”*

The next day, Imbesi woke up with what could only be described as, "a pain equivalent to that of ten thousand pikes being lodged into my fucking skull." Upon learning he had ordered the essential conquest of several cities, it was said after a period of contemplation, that Imbesi simply nodded, widely interpreted by legal scholars as an affirmation of the order.

The sieges were not the end of what would happen that day, however. The President, under the guise of curtailing the "rebellion" declared an indefinite state of emergency, suspending habeas corpus, press freedom, and freedom of speech. Later, an emergency session of the Supreme Court in Bezían would declare the previous day's impeachment unconstitutional, citing the lack of a “constitutionally legal quorum of the [People’s National Congress]”. The President would respond by boldly declaring on the steps of the Congress, “The court has made their choice. Let them enforce it!”

This act of disregard for Republican norms and values prompted further outrage and fury from regional governments across the nation. United across party lines, each and every governor, including those actively being marched upon by the Armed Forces, signed a written statement proclaiming:

> “We, as Arracians, as Republicans, as a believer in the enlightenment, condemn this pathetic, [Machiavellian], autocratic excuse of a 'President', whom has stumbled into a state of an Administration that dares name itself a successor to what came before, on the backs of bayonets and borderline treason!"
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As the first shells began to fall, and the Army quickly dispatched of any regional militias called up the governors to defend their respective capitals, international criticism now began to flood in. The Aarteljaven Explorer, for most of its publication history a staunch ally of Arracian interests in Obechliand, would ironically express this in the most direct and harsh terms, with a portion of its front-page article reading as follows:

> “Arracia as a nation and a people have fallen victim to deep corruption within their core, as they have allied their leadership to merge with the follies of dictatorship. Was it not this nation who, just two decades prior, declared itself a beacon for all those seeking justice, liberty, and equality? How far have those titans fallen.”
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### Return of Stability

In just three days, the sieges had ended. Upwards of 82 local lawmakers had been killed by that period, and two governors were injured. After the sieges ended, they were all forced to subsequent sign renewed "oaths of allegiances", as well as retire from politics permanently, with many choosing to enter semi-exile instead of having to endure the shame. Small-scale strikes that had popped up throughout the nation were also brutally crushed during this time, with the most notable incident being on Rodolfo Street in Bezian, resulting in the deaths of a dozen and the injury of 40. The Constitutional Crisis would never technically end, with the constitutionality of Imbesi never resolved, however August the 5th is widely recognized to be the end of the instability, and hence the end of the Crisis.

### Aftermath

#### Imbesi

The 143 congressmen who were arrested would all either retire quietly or leave the country in semi-exile. Imbesi himself would end his so-called "indefinite state of emergency" after recalling a new hastily assembled full session of the People's National Congress which attempted to repeal as much as Imbesi's previous actions as possible, however much of the damage was done. During this period, Imbesi would also appoint the aformentioned Marshal of the Armed Forces, Tomasso Pasternostro, to the position of Vice-President, to the distaste of many human rights advocates around the world. Imbesi would also schedule new elections. His promise? To finish what he started, and implement his irredentist vision for the nation. Despite all the nation had been through, Imbesi still had a loyal following of supporters, and he went into the next elections confident.

#### Enzo di Pasqua and the Republican People's Front

Enzo di Pasqua, who had advanced rapidly as his own party's leadership was devastated, rose to the leadership of the party on the backs of his wing being the effective political body in the party left. Despite promises to back Imbesi in the elections, di Pasqua was nominated as the RFPs candidate and would promptly backstab Imbesi, bogging down most of his legislation, refusing to pass his budget, and passing a series rapid-fire motions to heavily weaken the military, which despite the fact they occupied the capital, were only motivated by their hatred of Rigano rather than their love of Imbesi. In fact, many of them were actively swayed to di Pasqua's side during this period. This spatting match would be ended by the 1880 Arracian Presidential Election, where Enzo di Pasqua won in a landslide, winning over 200 seats in the PRC and stomping Imbesi with over 59% of the vote to his 33% of the vote.

#### The Provinces

The provinces of Vellen, Bezian, Ciengar, Meniera, and Vicente would, to this day, carry trauma of the event. This would motivate voters across their province to either refuse to vote during the election, or give their support to the Popular Party of Arracia, a briefly lived populist party made as a protest movement and alternative to the establishment Republican People's Front and Arracian Unity Party. The party would fail to gain any seats in the election, however it would achieve one of the best results of any third party in Arracian history, with its candidate, former lawyer and local official Diego Santos, winning 8% of the popular vote across the nation. The party would ultimately disband just 6 months later. The Popular Party however would endure in that to this day, voters in Vellen, Bezian, Ciengar, Meniera, and Vicente still vote with a populist bend in both local and federal elections, perhaps a sign of remembrance or silent judgement to Ciavar.

#### The Military

The military would get its first taste of real political power. Thanks to this, despite measures by Enzo di Pasqua to curb military involvement in politics, the Armed Forces would continue efforts to either meddle with, or free itself from oversight or restraint from the civlian government. The coup also first established the eternal animosity between the Arracian Civil Service and the Armed Forces, with the former viewing the latter as belligerent and wasteful, and the latter viewing the former as restraining, incompetent, and bloated. Efforts to really curb the military in politics ended with the military build-up of Romano, Gambelli, and Linori (the 6th, 7th, and 8th Presidents respectively), with contemporary politics existing under the existential shadow of potential military discontent with the civilian government and its belligerence.

#### Operation Axiom

In secret, now-President Imbesi ordered the deportation of over 250-300,000 Ralencian men, women, and children living in Vecciar and Vellen provinces to Alaeque Island, a small island about 40,000 kilometers sq. in area. Many of them would go directly into the sugar industry there, helping to meet the Republic's vast sugar deficits caused by the loss of Novar del Ciavas. A small minority though would be diverted to either forced labor centers in Ancorra, Sequiva, or Eurysia, or, if they possessed a skill, would be sent to Alaeque Island to help develop the island. Imbesi justified this with allegations of "Ralencian rebellion sturring within the population" that "required vast and rapid population exchange away from the mainland". He would also impose a 2.1 Billion Solar "debt" for these ethnic-Ralencians to pay, changing the legal definition of their punishment from slavery to debt peonage, even though slavery was illegal to attempt to rescue the public image of the operation.