2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis

Injuries
 Arrested

The **2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis** was a prolonged period of political tensions in the Republic of Morra which followed the assassination of President Sunil Bakshi in February 2039, and lasted for eleven months until the inauguration of Kairos Hemlock as president after the 2040 presidential election. The crisis marked the end of 16 years of near continuous dominance by the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy over Morranian politics, and the beginning of the Democratic Party of the People's central role in government.

In the immediate aftermath of the death of President Bakshi in February 2039, mass anti-government protests took to the streets to call for a total removal of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from government. Attempts by the government to placate protesters during the early months of the crisis largely failed, leading to more hawkish politicians in government gaining the political momentum to implement a state of emergency and utilise the armed forces and riot police against protesters. The deaths of protesters during the Brussels massacre in May 2039 prompted President Kairos Hemlock to resign her leadership of the VVD and denounce Speaker Peter Koonz, causing a political conflict between the executive and legislative branches of government. Hemlock's resignation effectively left Koonz as the head of the Morranian government, resulting in an expansion of the security apparatus in the conflict.

Amid widespread discontent with the government, in August 2039 Speaker Peter Koonz ordered the armed forces into the chamber of the National Assembly and forced representatives to vote for the impeachment of President Kairos Hemlock; with Hemlock's removal from office, Koonz became acting president and consolidated his power over the government by dissolving the National Assembly days later. However, Koonz's move was met with significant opposition and led to the collapse of his government coalition, as well as the rise of the Hemlock affiliated Democratic Party of the People; despite this, Koonz was able to remain in power as the only formal mechanism for his replacement resided within the now dissolved National Assembly, but constitutionally mandated general elections in 2040 meant that Koonz's stint in power was merely a brief period of authoritarianism rather than a full dictatorship.

## Background

 Main article: Assassination of Sunil Bakshi
Following decades of nationalistic sentiment, the region of Morra broke away from the Republic of Dunsteen in September 2022 with the backing of the multinational megacorporation EuroCorp to form the Transitional State of Dunsteen. After only 1 year and 11 months of independent democratic rule, EuroCorp sponsored a coup d'etat against the transitional state and instead installed the Corporate Republic of Dunsteen in September 2024. In January 2025, Sunil Bakshi was elected as president of the C.R.D. During his first presidency, Sunil Bakshi began to enact a transition plan to reform the Corporate Republic of Dunsteen towards a more democratic state; as part of this transition, Bakshi established the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to consolidate the EuroCorp affiliated independent caucus into the majority government political party, whilst a new National Assembly replaced the presidential council as the main legislature of the nation. On February 20, 2029, President Sunil Bakshi formally proclaimed the creation of the Republic of Morra as a successor state to the Corporate Republic of Dunsteen, with a new democratic constitution. Under the new quasi-democratic republic, the VVD retained a high degree of power and controlled the National Assembly of Morra with the aid of allied parties; however, a series of scandals and overt autocratic behaviour weakened the popularity of the VVD during the 2030s and allowed opposition forces to come to power in the National Assembly over the winter of 2036-37, before being deposed by President Bakshi. On February 20, 2039, President Sunil Bakshi was assassinated by terrorist forces in Brussels, with Vice President Kairos Hemlock assuming the presidency - Hemlock and Assembly speaker Peter Koonz would become locked in a power struggle at the heart of the eventual political crisis.

## Political Crisis

### Growing protests (February - May 2039)

Immediately following the shooting of Sunil Bakshi, Vice President Kairos Hemlock was taken to the executive office of the presidential palace alongside finance secretary Fachnan Opus and chief justice Dineke de Groot; at 21:11pm, chief justice de Groot administered the presidential oath of office to Kairos Hemlock, making her the fifth president of Morra and the first female holder of the office, as well as the youngest. President Hemlock held a televised address to the nation at 10am on February 21st, 2039, in which she announced the death of her predecessor and that she had assumed office as per the parameters of the constitution. In response to the death of President Bakshi, thousands took to the streets across the country to celebrate, with many celebrations escalating into protests against Speaker Peter Koonz and the VVD-led government. Amidst the ongoing protests, the mysterious terrorist organisation Venenum claimed responsibility for the assassination on February 22nd and called for a revolution against the Koonz led administration, resulting in the government tightening it's security legislation.

On Wednesday February 23, 2039, Speaker Koonz called the National Assembly of Morra into an emergency session to back the passing of the Public Security Defence Bill 2039, which granted the government increased powers to deploy armed forces in the place of the police in instances of violent unrest; during the legislative debate on the bill, opposition leader Wilhelm De Croo organised a collective opposition to the bill, with the legislation failing 152-148 after a tightly whipped vote. Protests against the government continued, backed by pro-democracy campaigners and opposition parties - a large protest camp had developed in the Vondelpark national gardens in Amsterdam by the start of March, whilst other groups claimed control over public parks in other major cities.

As the anti-government protests began to spread across the country, tensions within the government also increased as the relationship between President Kairos Hemlock and Speaker Peter Koonz increasingly deteriorated over the spring of 2039; following Hemlock's assumption of the presidency in February, Speaker Koonz had been making moves to attempt to consolidate power within the regime and transfer executive roles to his office. Whilst Hemlock preferred a conciliatory approach towards the protesters, Koonz actively sought to provoke the protesters into confrontation and passed several draconian pieces of security legislation without informing President Hemlock, effectively forcing her to sign them into law under pressure from the governing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. On March 13, 2039, the National Assembly of Morra initiated a vice presidential election in order to fill the vacant position, with Kairos Hemlock seeking to elect her ally Fachnan Opus; however, Speaker Peter Koonz actively sought to disrupt and lengthen proceedings to undermine the executive branch, and implemented new rules which made it easier for more candidates to take part. Following the first ballot, Koonz refused to hold more than one ballot per month, effectively forcing the position to remain vacant.

### Brussels Massacre (May 2039)

 Main article: Brussels Massacre

Since March 17, 2039, anti-government protesters had occupied Warandepark in Brussels in a bid to place pressure on the government of Speaker Peter Koonz to resign as part of the wider ongoing political protests in the aftermath of the assassination of President Sunil Bakshi. With Warandepark backing onto the Morranian Presidential Palace, which also contained government executive offices, several senior ministerial officials began to publicly voice frustration at the fact protests were allowed to control an area so close to the heart of government. On May 5, 2039, Speaker Peter Koonz ordered the armed forces to remove protesters from the park alongside the police forces - after twelve days of planning, government forces moved into the square at 10:02am on Tuesday May 17, 2039, making use of military vehicles and transports to quickly deploy hundreds of police and soldiers into the park. Violent confrontations between the government forces and protesters began almost immediately, after arriving military forces opened fire on protesters at 10:11am with direct orders from Speaker Koonz. Between 10:11am and 4:58pm, 300 protesters were killed by government forces, whilst over a thousand further protestors were arrested and detained during the clearing of Warandepark. During the clearing, protesters and government forces engaged in several clashes, which spread into the streets of Brussels and involved improvised explosive devices, tear gasses, and the deployment of armed vehicles along Brussels' streets. At 11:05am, Speaker Peter Koonz made a televised speech to the nation demanding that protesters across the country cease their action and end their protests, citing the example of Brussels to demonstrate what might happen to protests if they did not disband. On the day of the clearing, President Kairos Hemlock was in The Hague meeting with opposition leaders and thereby unaware of the actions being taken by her own government - Hemlock reportedly only found out about the ongoing clearing from Koonz's televised address, but quickly returned to Brussels to attempt to end the violence. After landing in an airport near the outskirts of the city, President Hemlock's motorcade was prevented from entering Brussels by military forces under the order of secretary of state for defence Lammert van Raan and the cabinet, resulting in a delay of an hour as Hemlock was forced to formally overrule the order. By the time the president returned to Brussels at 3pm, the majority of violence against the protestors had already occurred, with a death toll in the hundreds.

Despite privately threatening to dissolve the National Assembly to unseat Speaker Peter Koonz from office, President Kairos Hemlock instead scheduled a televised address to the nation for 2pm on Wednesday May 18, 2039. During her speech, Hemlock announced her resignation from the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) caucus of politicians and publicly proclaimed her support for the anti-government protesters, calling upon opposition parties in the National Assembly of Morra to vote to remove Speaker Koonz from office. Hemlock was criticised by some opposition groups for not calling snap elections, whilst PvdA party secretary and de-facto opposition leader Wilhelm De Croo praised Hemlock's dedication to democracy and argued that her decision was taken in the interests of public safety, with the likelihood of disruption during an election being high.

### Rising tensions (May - August 2039)

 Main article: Impeachment of Kairos Hemlock

As a direct result of President Kairos Hemlock's defection from the governing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), political tensions between the president and Speaker Peter Koonz were further exacerbated, and the pair began to take part in open political warfare. Speaker Koonz began to actively obstruct the ongoing vice presidential election in a bid to prevent President Hemlock from installing her close ally Fachnan Opus as vice president, having previously set out to prologue the election for as long as possible to undermine the president. On May 23, 2039, Speaker Koonz removed Opus as an official candidate of the VVD, though he was able to retain his cabinet positions, as part of a bid to encourage VVD representatives in the National Assembly to vote for Koonz's preferred candidate Lammert van Raan - despite this move, Opus finished the third ballot on May 28th in second place with 97 votes, 17 more than van Raan; after a fourth ballot on June 13, 2039, Lammert van Raan was eliminated from the election after Fachnan Opus remained as the secondary contender with 97 votes. Amid the growing protest movement, Speaker Peter Koonz attempted for a second time to pass the Public Security Defence Bill in June 2039, ultimately succeeding on a vote of 148-108 after the Worker's Political Alliance abstained from the vote. However, President Kairos Hemlock refused to sign the legislation into law, effectively vetoing it - between June and August 2039, President Hemlock vetoed 68 pieces of government legislation with the backing of opposition parties and protesters; during the political crisis, Hemlock's personal popularity soared, with her and Wilhelm De Croo being increasingly seen as the leaders of the anti-government movement.

In the morning of August 10, 2039, Speaker Peter Koonz announced in a press release that the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy would be initiating impeachment proceedings against Kairos Hemlock in a bid to remove her from office. Commentators noted that Koonz would assume the presidency as a result of such a move, not least because of his obstruction of the 2039 vice presidential election; Koonz became the subject of significant international and domestic criticism during the impeachment process. On August 13, 2039, interior secretary Markus Quade announced before the National Assembly that the government would be seeking to proceed to trial under the charges of "*gross negligence*" and "*moral corruption*", which would require votes of 165 and 180 members respectively to apply. Between August 13 and August 21, 2039, representatives of the National Assembly debated the proceedings and listened to arguments from the government regarding the two articles of impeachment. Following an alleged bomb threat on August 21, 2039, Speaker Peter Illich deployed the armed forces into the assembly chamber during the final voting process, in a move widely seen as a threat towards lawmakers to vote in favour of impeachment. Although opposition politicians voted against the motion regardless, the Worker's Political Alliance joined with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, DENK, the Liberal Party, and the New Party to vote for impeachment, resulting in the motions passing 192-108. Following the vote, Speaker Peter Koonz automatically became acting president in accordance with constitutional succession protocols and combined his legislative power with executive power.

### Escalation (September - December 2039)

With the impeachment of Kairos Hemlock on August 21, 2039, speaker of the National Assembly Peter Koonz automatically assumed office as acting president on the same day, becoming the first member of the legislative branch to have assumed control of the executive branch in Morranian history. In the afternoon of August 21st, finance minister Fachnan Opus resigned from office in solidarity with Hemlock, and gave an interview to the news channel MNTV in which he demanded that opposition parties make use of their majority in the National Assembly to immediately initiate the constitutional process for the assembly to elect a new permanent president, indicating his desire to see Kairos Hemlock return to office. With momentum growing behind a joint opposition motion to demand a vote to elect a new president for the remainder of the 2035-2040 presidential term, acting president Peter Koonz used his joint executive and legislative powers to dissolve the National Assembly on September 1, 2039 and prorogued it until after scheduled elections in January 2040; following Koonz's move, former president Kairos Hemlock signed a joint declaration with party leaders Wilhelm De Croo (PvdA), Alexander de Croo (PPM), Marine Le Pen (LPM), and Attje Kuiken (APA) to denounce the move as a "brazen coup on democracy". The same day, Marine Le Pen formally withdrew the Liberal Party from the Koonz administration and defected to the opposition grouping in the National Assembly. Two weeks later, on September 18, 2039, former government minister Fachnan Opus filed the formation of the Democratic Party of the People (DPV) with the independent Morranian Electoral Commission, allowing the party to run in all national elections in January 2040; though she was not legally registered as the party's leader, former president Kairos Hemlock acted as the de-facto head of the new party and party leadership even openly admitted that the party was a vehicle to return Hemlock and her ideology back to power. As the nation's most popular politician, Hemlock and the DPV lobbied the United Opposition caucus to be placed on the presidential ticket, and on September 26, 2039, Kairos Hemlock and Fachnan Opus were jointly nominated by the DPV, PvdA, PPM, and LPM for the presidency and vice presidency respectively - in return, the DPV promised to nominate Wilhelm De Croo for the office of speaker of the National Assembly. Alongside the DPV's successful bid for the united opposition nomination, 36 parliamentary members of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy defected to the DPV during September 2039, with Fachnan Opus becoming the parliamentary leader of the group as well as *de-jure* party head. With Peter Koonz's assumption of the presidency, legislative proceedings for the ongoing vice presidential election came to a halt as Koonz controversially refused to schedule a new ballot for the election; after the expiration of the constitutionally mandated 30 day period, acting president Koonz proclaimed the election to have been inconclusive and appointed his close ally Lammert van Raan as acting vice president on September 20, 2039, ensuring that van Raan would be able to take office in the case that Koonz was removed from office whilst simultaneously preventing Koonz from having to immediately relinquish his presidential powers. The move was highly criticised by pro-democracy campaigners, whilst DPV leader Fachnan Opus launched a personal attack against his rival van Raan, whom Opus deemed to be "morally incapable, and uniquely ill-suited for office".

## 2040 General Election

 Main articles: 2040 Morranian Presidential Election and 2040 Morranian National Assembly Election
### Presidential Election

With political parties required to register for the presidential election by October 1, 2039, two major political campaigns were able to secure places on the ballot paper; the VVD alliance of pro-government parties, and an alliance of left-wing opposition parties which competed under the banner of the "United Opposition". At the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy annual conference, party leader Peter Koonz and deputy party leader Lammert van Raan were nominated for the presidency and vice presidency by their party on June 18, 2039. On July 24, 2039, the United Opposition alliance nominated PvdA leader Wilhelm De Croo and PPM leader Alexander de Croo as their presidential and vice presidential candidates respectively. However, following the impeachment of President Kairos Hemlock and her formation of the Democratic Party of the People, the united opposition changed their nomination to allow Hemlock to stand for the presidency after polling showed her to be the country's most popular politician. The senior politician Fachnan Opus was then chosen as the united opposition's vice presidential candidate.

Following election day on January 4th, 2040, official results were announced on January 6th, 2040 by the independent Morranian Electoral Commission, with DPV securing 19 out of 26 states in a landslide victory despite the institutional bias of the electoral system in favour of the VVD. Following the election of a new National Assembly, Peter Koonz remained in power in a caretaker position despite having lost the election; on January 10, 2040, acting vice president Lammert van Raan presided over the swearing in of new members of the National Assembly after Koonz refused to swear in DPV members. After the inauguration of the new assembly, Speaker Koonz also refused to certify the results of the presidential election, obstructing all efforts to do so. Subsequently, PvdA leader Wilhelm De Croo motioned for an early vote on the speakership to be held on January 11, 2040, which resulted in De Croo being elected as speaker of the National Assembly at the head of a PvdA-DPV-PPM-LPM coalition government. At the same time as taking up the speakership, De Croo became acting president and signed off the required presidential decree to begin the transition between governments. On January 12, 2040, Speaker De Croo presided over the certification of presidential results, and formally confirmed them to be genuine the same evening. On January 20, 2040, Kairos Hemlock was inaugurated to a second term in office as president, whilst Fachnan Opus was inaugurated to the office of vice president. One of the first executive orders signed by President Hemlock was a decree ordering the arrest of Peter Koonz for treason against the republic, which subsequently disqualified him from holding office as a member of the National Assembly, as well as holding office as leader of the VVD; whilst supported by large swathes of the population, the move caused some concern from foreign observers, who saw it as being harmful to the nation's democracy.

### National Assembly

Prior to and during the election campaign, acting president Peter Koonz sought to clamp down against the independence of the Morranian Electoral Commission in order to attempt to rig the election in the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy's favour; in October 2039, the VVD controlled Bestrafer security services seized control of the commission's Amsterdam headquarters under the pretext of a criminal investigation, but were forced to withdraw after the armed forces and supreme court condemned the move. In response Koonz announced the introduction of sanctions against several senior military and business officials as a thread, but the move inadvertently had the effect of prompting the sanctioned individuals to lend their support to the Democratic Party of the People. As acting president Koonz continued to lash out against democratic protestors and prominent donors, independent opinion polls showed the governing VVD falling behind both the DPV and the Party of the Labourers (PvdA), whilst opposition parties began to enter into negotiations to form a new governing coalition in the event that they gained a majority in the National Assembly. On polling day there were numerous reports of the Bestrafer obstructing and intimidating voters, in one case even occupying and closing a voting centre; in response, the armed forces and police engaged in skirmishes with Bestrafer forces and secured the centres for free public usage.

On January 8, 2040, the results of the National Assembly election were made public by the Morranian Electoral Commission at a heavily guarded ceremony, with the PvdA receiving 73 seats, the DPV receiving 60, the VVD receiving 56, the PPM receiving 32, the APA receiving 26, DENK receiving 26, the LPM receiving 10, the NP receiving 7, and independent candidates gaining 8 seats. On January 10, 2040, newly elected members of the National Assembly of Morra were formally sworn into office by acting vice president Lammert van Raan after Peter Koonz refused to take part in the ceremony. Later the same day, Speaker Koonz returned to preside over the session, but actively obstructed the formal certification of presidential election results by the National Assembly in a last bid to try to prevent his rival Kairos Hemlock of the DPV from taking office. In response, the PvdA, DPV, PPM, and LPM jointly sponsored a bid to hold an early speakership election, which passed easily on January 11, 2040, resulting in PvdA leader Wilhelm De Croo forming a ministry of his own; as speaker, De Croo also briefly became acting president. With De Croo as speaker, the National Assembly formally elected Kairos Hemlock as president and Fachnan Opus as vice president, and the pair took office on January 20, 2040. Many former members of the VVD-led regime were targeted by lustration and purges under the Hemlock president, with Peter Koonz, Lammert van Raan, Didier Reynders, Attje Kuiken, Frank Wassenberg, and Peter Illich all being the target of criminal prosecutions for their roles in maintaining a dictatorial regime in Morra.

## See Also

* Assassination of Sunil Bakshi
* Brussels Massacre
* Impeachment of Eris Assecla
* 2042 Morranian Government Crisis