Federico Pinedo

**Federico Wilhelm Alexander Pinedo** (December 29, 1977 -) was a Morranian-Spanish statesman who held office across several departments during his political career. Most notably, Pinedo served as acting Speaker of the National Assembly of Morra between January 17, 2037 and February 20, 2037. He also held office as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and twice as Secretary of State for Finance. Pinedo also served as a member of the National Assembly from 2030 until 2042. Additionally, he served as acting General Secretary of the Party of the Labourers between January and March 2037, and again from May to July 2042, and was a leading member of the National Assembly's economic committee between 2037 and 2040.

Born in 1977 to Spanish-Morranian parents in the city of Madrid, Federico Pinedo graduated from the University of Paris in 1999 with a degree in political science, before moving to Amsterdam in 2001. In May 2005, Pinedo was elected to the Congress of Dunsteen and served as the representative for the city of Ypres for 17 years, before being expelled as a representative and deported from the country on October 13, 2022 following the independence of Morra. Following his deportation, Pinedo was appointed as secretary of state for foreign affairs in the Melenchon administration and oversaw the deportation of all citizens affiliated with EuroCorp, including former president Werner Reinheart and vice president Sunil Bakshi. Pinedo also saw the withdrawal of Morra from the Confederacy of Independent Nations and attempted to join the United Nations in 2023. In August 2024, Federico Pinedo was arrested in a coup d'état funded by the CIN and EuroCorp, and served nearly five years in prison before being pardoned.

Following his release in 2029, Pinedo helped found the Party of the Labourers (PvdA) and was elected to the National Assembly of Morra in the 2030 general election. In the aftermath of the 2036 Morranian National Assembly Election, Federico Pinedo became secretary of state for finance in an opposition-led coalition headed by PvdA leader Marianne Thieme. On January 15, 2037, President Sunil Bakshi dissolved the National Assembly; during the election campaign, Thieme was assassinated on the orders of President Bakshi, and Federico Pinedo was appointed as acting speaker until the election of a new government, as well as becoming acting head of the PvdA. Following Thieme's death, the opposition coalition collapsed and Pinedo resigned his position as speaker following the election, as well as stepping down to allow the election of Wilhelm De Croo as party leader.

After leaving office as acting speaker, Pinedo remained as a member of the National Assembly and took up leadership of the National Assembly's Economic Committee in June 2037, as well as retaining his position of deputy leader of the Party of the Labourers. Amid the 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis, Federico Pinedo became a leading opposition figure and took part in major rallies across the country demanding the resignation of Speaker Peter Koonz. Following elections in 2040, Pinedo was appointed as secretary of state for finance in the newly sworn in De Croo ministry. During the presidency of Kairos Hemlock, Pinedo enacted major economic reforms under the National Reform Act of 2040. Pinedo's increasingly fractious relationship with PvdA general secretary Wilhelm De Croo led him to back the removal of De Croo following a failed constitutional referendum in 2042; in the aftermath of De Croo's resignation, Pinedo once again became acting party leader of the PvdA and remained as finance secretary in the newly formed de Ruiter Ministry. Federico Pinedo declined to stand for re-election in the November 2042 snap election and retired from politics.

## History

Federico Wilhelm Alexander Pinedo was born on December 29, 1977 to Spanish-Morranian parents in the city of Madrid in the State of Spain. Whilst living in Madrid, Pinedo attended the prestigious St. George Madrid school, before moving to Dunsteen in 1995 to attend the University of Paris, where he graduated in 1999 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science. In September 2001, Pinedo moved to Amsterdam and went to live with members of his extended family until 2003, when he began to flat share with the future renowned scholar Bik el Cykel. In 2004, Pinedo became a fee-paying member of the Democratic Party of Dunsteen and joined several campaigns as a local volunteer.

## Political Career

 **Political Career**Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs • Secretary of State for Finance • General Secretary of the PvdA • Deputy Leader of the PvdA • Chairman of the National Assembly Economic Committee • Derigo Disease Debate • Impeachment of Eris Assecla • 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis • Impeachment of Kairos Hemlock • 2042 Morranian Government Crisis • Democratic Party • Congress of Dunsteen • National Alliance • Independence Alliance • Party of the Labourers • National Assembly of Morra • United Opposition of Morra

 **Electoral History**2030 National Assembly election • 2035 National Assembly election • 2036 National Assembly election • 2037 National Assembly election • 2040 National Assembly election

### Congress of Dunsteen

In October 2004, Federico Pindeo was selected as the Democratic Party congressional candidate for the city district of Ypres, and narrowly won his election campaign in February 2005. On May 1, 2005, Pinedo was sworn in as the congressman for Ypres. During his tenure as a congressman, Pinedo became an increasingly staunch advocate of worker's rights and welfare policies, arguing against the more centrist and austere fiscal policies of President Frank Stienmeier despite their shared party. In 2014, following the resignation of Stienmeier as party leader, Peinedo backed the campaign of Jean Luc Melenchon for party leader, though ultimately Melenchon was defeated by Emanuel Macron. In the spring of 2016, Melenchon resigned from the Democratic Party and established the National Alliance as a socialist party advocating for the independence of the region of Morra from Dunsteen; despite being one of Melenchon's key allies, Pinedo declined to join the National Alliance and instead attempted to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination for the 2017 election, though he was resoundingly defeated by party leader Macron.

During the presidency of Emanuel Macron, Federico Pinedo was one of the most vocal opponents to the Macron administration's draconian security legislation and frequently criticised the party leadership for cutting taxes on the wealthiest. In the 2022 presidential election, Pinedo declined to support Macron's re-election campaign and instead appeared in a rally in support of National Alliance candidate Marine Le Pen. In October 2022, the militia wing of the Morranian nationalist Independence Alliance secured control over the low counties and proclaimed Morra to be an independent state; as a representative from the occupied territories, Pinedo was formally expelled from the Congress of Dunsteen and deported from the country on October 13, 2022, hours after Werner Reinheart proclaimed himself as leader of the new Transitional State.

### Policy Advisor

In the aftermath of his expulsion from Dunsteen, Federico Pinedo joined the National Alliance party and became a key policy advisor for party leader Jean Luc Melenchon. Alongside Melenchon and Marine Le Pen, the three senior party figures led the party in opposition to President Werner Reinheart and attempted to push for a liberal constitution and formal government to replace the de-facto leadership of the Independence Alliance. As part of this, Pinedo helped plan the party's strategy to block Reinheart's attempts to implement a corporate constitution and entirely deregulate the economy; in January 2023, the National Alliance pressured President Reinheart into calling snap presidential elections after successfully blocking his constitutional reforms. In the subsequent election, Pinedo endorsed Melenchon's election campaign and was appointed as secretary of state for foreign affairs in Melenchon's administration following the election.

### Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Following the inauguration of Jean Luc Melenchon as president on January 20, 2023, Federico Pinedo was appointed as secretary of state for foreign affairs and head of the Independence Alliance's diplomatic service. On January 26, 2023, Pinedo announced that the government would be expelling all members of EuroCorp from the newly established state, and was one of the three ministers that signed off on the deportations of former president Werner Reinheart and vice president Sunil Bakshi in March 2023. In August 2023, Pinedo launched a major policy directive to withdraw from the Confederacy of Independent Nations and to attempt to reconcile relationships with the Republic of Dunsteen, which refused to recognise the Transitional State as being independent; as part of this withdrawal from the Confederacy, foreign secretary Pinedo travelled to Beijing to meet with senior members of the Libirachi government, whilst also travelling to Washington D.C. to meet with President Simon Walker.

On October 18, 2023, the Transitional State of Dunsteen formally withdrew from the CIN, despite objections from Confederate leadership, and became a non-aligned state. The following month, Pinedo began to spearhead a plan for the region to enter into the United Nations under the name of "The Netherlands", the Morranian region's name during it's administration by the Republic of Dunsteen; ultimately, this attempt failed after the Fox Dynasty, United Kingdom, and United States all exercised their veto rights to reject the admission on the grounds of preserving territorial integrity. In response to the Transitional State of Dunsteen's withdrawal from the Confederacy of Independent Nations, the CIN began to funnel millions of dollars into EuroCorp and personal bribes towards members of the military high command, and in August 2024, the armed forces conducted a military coup d'état against President Jean Luc Melenchon, toppling the democratic regime and reinstating Werner Reinheart as president in September 2024.

### Prison Sentence

Between August 2024 and February 2029, Federico Pinedo was incarcerated without charge by the military junta and subsequent corporate republic. Following the formation of the Republic of Morra in February 2029 and the transition to a quasi-democratic political system, all political prisoners held by the government were released and granted full pardons for all non criminal charges. Federico Pinedo was one of the most public figures to receive a pardon, alongside former vice president Marine Le Pen and former finance secretary Geordo Hemlock.

### Party of the Labourers

Following the formation of the democratic Republic of Morra in February 2029, the longstanding ban on political parties other than the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) was lifted. In April 2029, Federico Pinedo and former interior secretary Marianne Thieme jointly founded the Party of the Labourers (PvdA) as a social democratic party and spiritual successor to the disbanded National Alliance; Thieme became the inaugural general secretary of the party, whilst Pinedo became the deputy leader of the party. With both senior party leaders of the PvdA being former members of the National Alliance, the PvdA quickly expanded with the aid of left-wing remnants from the former party and was viewed by many as the de-facto opposition party to the governing VVD even prior to the 2030 general election.

During the 2035 and 2036 National Assembly elections, Federico Pinedo served as the Party of the Labourers' campaign director and as the party's coordinator with the wider United Opposition of Morra alliance. Following the assassination of Marianne Thieme during the election campaign for the 2037 National Assembly election, Federico Pinedo became acting general secretary of the PvdA under the rules of the party constitution and took over the party leadership midway through the campaign. The election ended in defeat after the PvdA lost seats for the first time since the party's formation, and Pinedo stepped down as general secretary following the election of Wilhelm De Croo as a permanent successor in March 2037.

Under De Croo, Federico Pinedo remained as deputy leader of the PvdA in an attempt to unite the party behind its new leader, but Pinedo took on a mostly ceremonial role as De Croo centralised decision making within the party to his inner circle of advisors.

## Tenure in the National Assembly

### First Term (2030 - 2035)

In January 2030, Federico Pinedo was elected as a member of the National Assembly of Morra as a representative of the Party of the Labourers (PvdA) and was sworn into office on January 10, 2030 by incumbent speaker of the assembly Peter Illich. Following the election, the PvdA became the second largest party in the assembly and the largest of the opposition parties, allowing Pinedo to take on a prominent role as the *de-facto* deputy leader of the opposition. In March 2030, Pinedo was one of the nine elected members of the National Assembly Economic Committee, alongside committee chair Fachnan Opus and Progressive Party leader Alexander de Croo; in his work as part of the economic committee, Pinedo was a harsh critic of finance secretary Attje Kuiken's fiscal policy and frequently took part in questioning government representatives over their conduct and policy. In October 2031, Pinedo was among the dozens of opposition figures to vote against the government's controversial Healthcare Regulations Act. Pinedo's work on the economic committee saw him become a widely recognised figure in Morranian politics, with clips of his verbal attacks against government ministers during committee hearings going viral on the internet between opposition supporters.

### Second Term (2035 - 2036)

In the 2035 general election, the PvdA increased its seat share and Federico Pinedo was re-elected to a second term as a representative of the National Assembly of Morra. During his first speech of the new assembly session, Pinedo gave a speech criticising the conduct of the presidential and legislative elections, and directly called for fresh elections with international observers. In August 2036, a political scandal erupted after Speaker Peter Illich of the National Assembly of Morra was arrested after breaking into the property of a political rival and attempting to murder them; subsequently, Pinedo and the PvdA led calls for Illich's resignation as speaker, after Illich claimed legal immunity under his position as speaker. Following a meeting with president Sunil Bakshi and opposition leaders Marianne Thieme and Federico Pinedo, Illich was dismissed from his positions by President Bakshi and new legislative leadership was established following the election of Frank Wassenberg as speaker of the National Assembly of Morra on October 1, 2036. After a tense debate in the National Assembly on October 26, 2036 in which opposition leaders and several figures in government made clear that Wassenberg should seek a mandate of his own before forming a government, Speaker Wassenberg dissolved the National Assembly on October 29th and called for snap elections for November 12th.

### Third Term (2036 - 2037)

Federico Pinedo was re-elected in the snap 2036 National Assembly Election by a significant margin as part of a massive uptake in support for the Party of the Labourers and opposition parties in the wake of the Peter Illich Scandal and the fall in economic conditions. On November 19, 2036, Pinedo was sworn into office by Speaker Frank Wassenberg for his third term as a representative to the National Assembly. The significant rise in support for opposition parties during the 2036 election allowed the PvdA-led United Opposition of Morra alliance to gain a narrow majority in the National Assembly, and in the evening of November 19th, the newly elected National Assembly appointed PvdA leader Marianne Thieme as speaker and formed a new opposition cabinet. The appointment of the Thime Ministry marked the first time that opposition politicians had held office in any level of government since the formation of the Republic of Morra, and meant that the government was divided between the VVD-led presidency and the opposition-led cabinet.

Under the new coalition government, Federico Pinedo was appointed as secretary of state for finance on November 19, 2036. On December 1, 2036, Pinedo announced that the coalition would be freezing all government spending proposals put in place by the previous VVD-led administration, and announced that increased spending on the armed forces would be dropped effective immediately. On December 31, 2036, all DENK, Liberal Party, and independent members of the governing coalition unexpectedly withdrew from the government and resigned their ministerial positions, though the Liberal Party pledged limited backbench support for the government; following the withdrawal of nearly a third of the coalition, the Thieme Ministry was left without a majority in the National Assembly, effectively making fresh elections inevitable. After the withdrawal, several members of DENK and Liberal Party leadership claimed that they were forced to do so by threats from the VVD; on January 5, 2037, DENK leader Geert Wilders was mysteriously poisoned after alleging VVD involvement in forcing him to withdraw from government. Following Speaker Thieme's disclosure on January 14, 2037 of the involvement of the VVD government in the spread of the Derigo disease within Morra, the financial markets began to rapidly drop Morranian bonds, necessitating government intervention to calm the markets.

#### Acting Speakership

 President

On January 15, 2037, in response to Speaker Marianne Thieme's allegations of VVD involvement in spreading the highly infectious Derigo disease, President Sunil Bakshi dissolved the National Assembly and called for fresh elections on February 12, 2037. Just days after the dissolution of the assembly, on January 17th Speaker Thieme was assassinated whilst holding an election rally in an assault later revealed to have been conducted on the orders of President Bakshi.

Following Thieme's assassination, Federico Pinedo automatically became acting general secretary of the Party of the Labourers and acting speaker of the National Assembly in his position as deputy leader of the PvdA and designated successor to the speakership respectively. Whilst the National Assembly had technically been dissolved by presidential decree, Pinedo's appointment as speaker allowed for the continuation of the functions of cabinet during the election campaign and until the formation of a new government. On January 20, 2037, Pinedo held a meeting with president Sunil Bakshi and VVD leader Frank Wassenberg, which Pinedo later alleged in his memoirs that Bakshi had threatened to order his assassination if the PvdA raised allegations of election manipulation against the government.

Within the United Opposition of Morra, the already fractured opposition coalition which had been disrupted by the withdrawal of DENK and the Liberal Party splintered even further as internal policy debates became increasingly toxic without the unifying figure of Marianne Thieme to resolve policy disputes. Similarly, during the election campaign, VVD-controlled state media effectively silenced certain opposition parties by refusing to grant them time on national broadcasts to make their pollical cases to the public, whilst VVD-backing media savagely attacked Pinedo, the PvdA, and the legacy of former speaker Thieme.

On election night on February 12, 2037, the Party of the Labourers lost only a handful of seats but without a large coalition backing its policies, the party was unable to form a new ministry; instead, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) successfully formed a coalition between itself, the Worker's Political Alliance, the New Party, and a series of independent pro-VVD representatives. On February 19, 2037, newly elected members of the National Assembly of Morra were formally sworn into office by acting speaker Federico Pinedo, who himself won re-election as a representative for a fourth term. Upon the formal beginning of the new legislative session, acting speaker Pinedo resigned his position, allowing President Sunil Bakshi to nominate Frank Wassenberg as speaker designate, effectively giving Wassenberg the *de-facto* power of the presiding officer until an election on February 20, 2037 confirmed him as speaker, though Pinedo remained in office until Wassenberg's formal election. With the election of Frank Wassenberg as speaker, Federico Pinedo returned to the assembly's backbenches and was replaced as finance secretary by his predecessor, Attje Kuiken.

### Fourth Term (2037 - 2040)

After leaving office as acting speaker, Federico Pinedo resumed ordinary membership of the National Assembly and began his fourth term as a representative, having sworn himself in during his tenure as acting speaker. On February 26, 2037, Pinedo launched the start of a process to elect a successor as head of the Party of the Labourers, which ultimately saw the legislative delegation of the PvdA appoint former foreign minister Wilhelm De Croo to the position of general secretary on March 13, 2037. Following De Croo's election, Pinedo relinquished his role as acting general secretary and resumed his position as deputy leader of the party with De Croo's permission as part of a bid to link the Thieme and De Croo party leaderships. Between February and June 2037, Pinedo indicated several times that he would step down from politics and resign from the National Assembly of Morra by the end of the year, but ultimately reneged on the pledge after the eruption of the Derigo Disease Debate in July 2037. Despite not participating in the debate actively, Federico Pinedo voted to pass the Public Health Regulations Act 2037 and voted in favour of the impeachment of vice president Eris Assecla in the direct aftermath of the debate.

For her role in opposing the government's position, Pinedo's successor as finance secretary, Attje Kuiken, was removed from office and replaced with Fachnan Opus, the chair of the National Assembly's Economic Committee of which Pinedo was himself a member. With Opus' appointment as finance secretary, Pinedo took up leadership of the National Assembly's Economic Committee on June 17, 2037 and remained active within the committee for the following three years. Whilst not as high profile as his predecessor, Federico Pinedo's leadership of the Economic Committee granted the United Opposition a platform from which to criticise and undermine government economic policy. The committee was particularly scathing in its assessment of Fachnan Opus' snap budget in November 2037, and issued a report demanding that significant parts of the budget be rewritten for the sake of economic stability.

Following the assassination of president Sunil Bakshi on February 20, 2039, Federico Pinedo was one of the members of the National Assembly invited to attend the subsequent state funeral. Despite being of a different political party to Kairos Hemlock, Bakshi's former vice president and successor as president, Pinedo and Hemlock established a functional working relationship; the two ultimately joined forces to oppose Speaker Peter Koonz after he began attempting to reinstate outright dictatorial rule in Morra and orchestrated Hemlock's impeachment in a bid to seize control over government. In September 2039, Hemlock and her supporters founded the Democratic Party of the People, which allied with the Party of the Labourers and joined the United Opposition of Morra in a bit to unseat Koonz. In the 2040 Morranian National Assembly Election, the Party of the Labourers became the largest party in the National Assembly and had formed a coalition agreement with the Democratic Party of the People, Progressive Party, and Liberal Party to form a government, and on January 11, 2040, Wilhelm De Croo was elected as speaker of the National Assembly of Morra.

### Fifth Term (2040 - 2042)

On January 11, 2040, Federico Pinedo was appointed as secretary of state for finance in the newly sworn in De Croo ministry, and was retained following the inauguration of Kairos Hemlock as president of Morra on January 20, 2040. As one of the few members of the new government to have had previous experience in a senior position, Federico Pinedo quickly became a trusted confidant of President Hemlock and was appointed as the head of an internal commission to speed up internal government decision making. As finance secretary, Pinedo began to develop policy proposals for an emergency budget to reposition Morra's economic position, but these plans were announced to have been shelved on May 17, 2040 as part of a pivot towards passing major constitutional reforms as early as possible. Pinedo was a major advocate for an increase in pension reforms and the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, and both proposals would pass into law in September 2040 as the basis of the economic portion of the National Reform Act of 2040. In February 2041, finance secretary Pinedo and President Hemlock gave a joint address to the National Assembly in which they announced a desire to renegotiate the Amsterdam Agreement of 2032 and create a trade route between the Fox Dynasty, Avalonia, and Morra. Additionally, Pinedo announced a "technology subsidy system" designed to incentivise tech companies to invest in the Morranian economy and preferential contracts for firms willing to base themselves in the country.

Whilst being supportive of his party's leadership, Federico Pinedo clashed with PvdA general secretary Wilhelm De Croo in the spring of 2042 over proposals to strip the presidency of Morra of its executive powers, with his opposition growing after De Croo publicly announced the proposals without first informing President Hemlock. After a constitutional referendum on the proposals failed by a significant margin in May 2042, allegedly with the aid of electoral fraud, Pinedo was one of the first high level members of the Party of the Labourers to urge De Croo to resign and personally recommended the election of a new speaker to President Hemlock. On May 24, 2042, Wilhelm De Croo resigned as speaker of the National Assembly and general secretary of the PvdA, leaving Federico Pinedo as the acting head of the PvdA in his capacity as deputy leader; the same day, Ophelia de Ruiter of the Democratic Party of the People was elected as speaker and formed a new government of largely the same composition as the De Croo Ministry, with Pinedo retained as secretary of state for finance. As acting leader of the PvdA, Pinedo oversaw the election for his successors as both party leader and deputy leader; on July 28, 2042, Pierre Moscovici and Gerda Hasselfeldt were elected as leader and deputy leader respectively. During the Morranian National Assembly election in November 2042, Federico Pinedo declined to stand for re-election and stood down as a member of the National Assembly.

## Post-parliamentary life

Upon retiring from the National Assembly of Morra in November 2042, Federico Pinedo was awarded the honorific rank of Commander of the Order of Freedom (Dutch: *Commandeur in de Orde van de Vrijheid*) and the right to use the initials COV after his name for life by President Kairos Hemlock on December 20, 2042. In January 2043, Pinedo became a television host on the state run Morranian Television Network (MTN) as the host of his own political affairs programme, and published a duology of memoirs in 2043 and 2044 with the backing of the state-owned Brussels National Publishing House.

Pinedo's close relationship with state owned media companies following his retirement has been a source of criticism from political opponents and historians, who allege that Pinedo was employed by President Kairos Hemlock to act as a mouthpiece for pro-government propaganda in exchange for continued political influence and a significant salary. Indeed, Pinedo's role as a trusted authority figure by members of the opposition can be demonstrated by upticks in support for President Hemlock's emergency decrees following their endorsement by Pinedo during the period 2042 - 2045. Despite the continued democratic backsliding and increasing authoritarianism of Hemlock's government and the policies of the Democratic Party of the People-led government, Federico Pinedo remained one of the government's most vocal backers in the media throughout the 2040s, and continued to back Hemlock's successor as president, Ophelia de Ruiter.

## Personal Life

As a dual Spanish-Morranian citizen, having also formerly been a citizen of Dunsteen, Federico Pinedo was constitutionally eligible to hold elected office in Spain, Dunsteen, and Morra during various points in his life. Like many other prominent politicians during the early years of the Republic of Morra, Pinedo served in elected office in the Republic of Dunsteen prior to the beginning of his political career in Morra.

In 2009, Federico Pinedo married Elissa Kanesworth, a Libirachi citizen, in a private ceremony in Ypres attended by members of the local council and prominent regional journalists. The couple had three children, Alberto, Damien, and Leticia in 2011, 2014, and 2018 respectively. Following Pinedo's arrest in 2024 following a military coup d'état, the Pindedo family suffered financially and Elissa was barred from gaining work in Morra, leading to her and the Pinedo children emigrating to Beijing with the aid of the Libirachi embassy. In 2029, following Federico Pinedo's release and the transition away from outright dictatorship, Elissa Pinedo and their children returned to Morra.

## Written Works

* *Federico Pinedo: Reflections on a Career* (Brussels National Publishing House, 2043)
* *Federico Pinedo: The Fight For Democracy* (Brussels National Publishing House, 2044)
* *Birth of a Nation: The Formation, Independence, and Modern History of Morra* (Brussels National Publishing House, 2045)
* *The Irresistible Rise of Kairos Hemlock* (Brussels National Publishing House, 2047)