Emergency Rule, 2138-2140
Emergency Rule, 2138-2140
The mandatory curfew in Summer 2138 has laid bare the true nature of UN governance on Earth; for those few stifling nights, the velvet glove slipped to show the iron fist beneath. The allegations of vote tampering were a ruse, designed to simultaneously keep the Li government in power and neutralize the threat posed by Mariam Kwame and her supporters. As soon as the initial polling results from eastern Asia reached the Central Committee, panic set in: all polls indicated an overwhelming Conservative Party victory amid extremely low voter turnout. In a ploy suggested by Getulio Gaurchi, an octogenarian naval officers serving on the Central Committee, the Li government engineered charges of election fraud to void the results and prevent the Conservative Party from dismantling the army and – to the generals whose intellectual outlooks had been shaped by the unification doctrines of the 2080s and 2090s – jeopardizing the future of humanity.
Although suspicions about the truth of the government’s claims are common, actual opposition had foundered in a web of guesswork. The lack of sure facts about the 2138 election has been exacerbated by silence from the opposition. Aisha Ibrahim has quietly resigned from public life and returned to her isolated farmstead; privately, she has cited concerns about the safety of her family. Mariam Kwame and several of her closest deputies are under house arrest, while her supporters still at liberty are still under suspicion for their own alleged role in election rigging. Unable to mount an effective response to the government’s assertions, society has largely accepted the official line. Thus, for months, Earth has waited passively for Li Beijiong to deliver on his promise of new elections.
In the interim, the Central Committee has continued to govern without the UNLA, meeting in temperate Buenos Aires. Under the pretense that the economy cannot be stalled due to political issues, Mohammed al-Iskandari has developed the 7th Five Year Plan and begun implemented it without legislative approval. Although a clear example of executive overreach, no national governments have objected because, unlike its controversial predecessor, the 7th Five Year Plan is utterly unobjectionable. It sets out a gradual expansion of industrial output, particularly focusing on the construction of new lightweight synthetic materials for space travel, a further expansion of higher education, new infrastructure to better reflect the concentration of the population in urban areas, and the construction of orbiting solar power stations.
By the end of August 2138, soldiers are out of the streets and back in their barracks in Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. Temporarily governed by a council made of nonpartisan politicians and military officers, elections have been organized for November 2138. The candidate lists for these elections, however, have been heavily redacted to exclude the many members of both the Communist Party and the opposition under active investigation on conspiracy and treason charges. The elections have returned a reliable Communist government in all three countries, with all presidents have publicly disavowed Mariam Kwame for her alleged role in electoral fraud.
Pictured: Colonel Mbalume and his chief officers announcing the organization of new elections in Burkina Faso following the removal and arrest of President Youssouf Compaore
The first orbiting solar power station was launched on 4 July 2139, named the UNS Comrade Idriss Sankara in an attempt to generate some popular support for the interim government. Rather than celebrating the achievement, most of the press has bitterly complained that the Li government has focused more on the rocket launch than on organizing the promised elections. New extremely high capacity batteries developed in 2136 were attached to the solar panels, able to be ejected and returned to Earth and replacements fitted in their place. The first of these batteries, which, for efficiency purposes, are easily the size of city buses, was safely returned to Earth on 19 October 2139. The additional energy from this solar power station has been used to further develop electricity-intensive industries.
Pictured: The launch of the UNS Idriss Sankara in the French department of Guyane. The rocket was designed to pass next to the sun and release its solar panel array in a position to orbit the star
During a formal dinner in Luanda, halfway through castigating the unfortunate Angolan Minister of Finance for daring to oppose progress by lamenting that his granddaughter would never see wild cattle, Li Beijiong suddenly stopped mid-rebuke and began to clutch at the tablecloth. To the horror of the assembled guests, Secretary-General Li proceeded to rise from his chair, stumble, and fall. He was rushed to the Josina Machel Hospital, but on the night of 2 February 2140, Li Beijiong, at the relatively young age of 64, died of a hemorrhagic stroke. Head of the UN government for over 20 years and easily one of the youngest members of the Central Committee, Li Beijiong’s passing has left the rest of the government in a precarious position.
Pictured: Angolan politicians and UN army officers attend a state dinner on 2 February in Luanda, Angola. Not pictured, behind the photographer, Li Beijiong and the other Central Committee members are seated
The morning of 4 February, the reconvened Central Committee announced their collective decision to appoint Watanabe Yuma as the new Chair of the Central Committee and head of the interim government. The election of Watanabe Yuma has been, more than anything, disheartening and pathetic. Party members and opposition leaders had been respectively hoping and dreading that the Committee would select De Liang, Li Beijiong’s favored protégé and by far the youngest committeeman. Watanabe Yuma, although illustrious and widely esteemed for his role in unifying Earth, is now in his 97th year and both his physical and mental capacities have slipped significantly. Very few people outside of the Central Committee believe that Watanabe Yuma – who depends on the constant assistance of his granddaughter to move, read, and perform other basic tasks as a committeeman – is fit for the challenges of office or worthy of Earth’s trust in the way that Li Beijiong was.
On the first official day of his role as interim Secretary-General, 8 February, Watanabe Yuma reiterated Li Beijiong’s promise to hold fair and free elections for a new Legislative Assembly. This task, however, has been daunting as, despite his assurances to the contrary, Li Beijiong had taken none of the very real, necessary, and complicated steps towards organizing a global election. Under other circumstances, this delay might have provoked concerns of dictatorship, but a constant stream of disenchanted officials anonymously informing the press of actual preparations for an election have kept tempers down. After over two years of direct executive rule, elections for a new Legislative Assembly are to be held on 19 May 2140.
