Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes V (Do Not Post Current Politics Here)

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Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016), nicknamed "El Gobernador," was an American politician and attorney who
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served as the 30th governor of Cuba from 1961 to 1970, before serving in the United States Senate from 1975 until his resignation in 1987. Within
Cuba, Castro is seen as an incredibly popular political figure, responsible for huge reforms of Cuban healthcare, infrastructure, and education.

Castro is considered by many to be one of the most important and most successful socialist politicians in United States history, whose ability to enact major healthcare reform—namely, the implementation of single-payer healthcare within the state of Cuba—led to the major restructuring of healthcare throughout many states.

Born in Birán, Cuba, Castro was the son of a wealthy peninsulare farmer. Despite this more conservative origin, he began associating with more left-wing politics while attending the University of Havana for his degree in law. He graduated with a doctorate in 1950, and worked as an attorney until his arrest in 1952 by the Cuban branch of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was released from prison in 1954, following the impeachment of the then-governor of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista in the same year. This arrest was later waived from Castro's criminal record due to the corrupt nature of the Second Red Scare within Cuba.

Following his stepping out of office of governor, Castro moved towards a seat in the Senate. Even while not in an executive office, he held political strength both within his home state and abroad, particularly for his pragmatic views of foreign policy with the Soviet Union. These views on foreign policy made him one of the major proponents of the détente philosophy prevalent in the Cold War, and made him supportive of presidential candidate (as well as later personal friend) John F. Kennedy.

Castro was well-known for his abilities to effectively craft speeches and for his popular support among progressives. He was a major anti-militarist and -imperialist, as well as an opponent towards segregation and apartheid. Following his departure from the Senate, Castro remained prevalent in politics. He became a prominent activist for Hispanics, as well as African-Americans and other minority groups. He proved instrumental for the bettering of healthcare nationwide, and his actions inspired many others to join leftist politics.
 
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Bruce Wayne was a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and owner of Wayne Enterprises. He was richest man in his native New Jersey for most of his life, and estimated to be the 12th richest man in America at one point. He served as the Police Commissioner of Gotham from 1962 to 1969, succeeding longtime Commissioner and friend, Jim Gordon. In 1940, he adopted the orphaned acrobat Richard Grayson. His 1955 marriage to convicted felon Selena Kyle was considered scandalous during his day, but they remained happily married for 31 years and had one daughter, lawyer Helena Wayne.

For many decades, it was thought that Bruce Wayne had a connection to, or was, the notorious vigilante and crime-fighter, Batman of Gotham City. In his lifetime, Wayne denied such accusations and insisted on being merely a supporter of the “Dark Knight” like so many citizens of Gotham were. 34 years after his death, it was discovered that, and later officially corroborated by the Wayne estate, that Bruce Wayne was the original Batman of Gotham City, an inaugural member of the Justice Society of America, as well as one of the first superheroes in modern America.
 
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The 1988 United States presidential election was the 51st quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8th, 1988. Democratic governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush.

George H.W. Bush easily won the Republican nomination as his frontrunner status was never truly contested. Bill Clinton however suffered a disappointing 4th and 3rd place in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests respectively. He was able to rebuild his momentum following Wyoming, Georgia, Arkansas and an endorsement from fellow challenger for the nomination and Senator Al Gore.

Bush’s attempts at portraying Clinton as “just another Liberal” backfired due to his status as a Washington outsider and Clinton’s talking up of a strong economic foundation. Bush meanwhile was unable to distinguish himself from his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, leading to desire for change. Reagan’s policies too had began to become very unpopular, especially in the midwestern states where Clinton was able to flip the previously traditionally republican states of Illinois and Michigan. In the presidential debates Clinton criticised the Reagan administrations “trickle down” economics for causing job losses and coined the term “birdbath economics” in criticism of the policy. Bush meanwhile accused Clinton of lacking experience but his selection of longtime Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate stifled such criticism. By contrast, Bush’s running mate Dan Quayle faced similar accusations but his response of comparing himself to President John F Kennedy in the vice presidential debates was met with sharp rebuke from Bentsen, famously saying “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”. The failure of the Bush campaign to successfully trounce Clinton/Bentsen in the debates and to compete with the energy of Clinton is widely attributed to their loss.
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Bruce Wayne was a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and owner of Wayne Enterprises. He was richest man in his native New Jersey for most of his life, and estimated to be the 12th richest man in America at one point. He served as the Police Commissioner of Gotham from 1962 to 1969, succeeding longtime Commissioner and friend, Jim Gordon. In 1940, he adopted the orphaned acrobat Richard Grayson. His 1955 marriage to convicted felon Selena Kyle was considered scandalous during his day, but they remained happily married for 31 years and had one daughter, lawyer Helena Wayne.

For many decades, it was thought that Bruce Wayne had a connection to, or was, the notorious vigilante and crime-fighter, Batman of Gotham City. In his lifetime, Wayne denied such accusations and insisted on being merely a supporter of the “Dark Knight” like so many citizens of Gotham were. 34 years after his death, it was discovered that, and later officially corroborated by the Wayne estate, that Bruce Wayne was the original Batman of Gotham City, an inaugural member of the Justice Society of America, as well as one of the first superheroes in modern America.
I would love to see more of these. What happend to Jason, tim and Damian? And will you do the same for superman and wonder women?
 
Bruce Wayne

Absolutely amazing box.

So, was Bruce Wayne considered a vapid, self-indulgent playboy in his lifetime (at least until his tenure as Police Commissioner), or was he outspoken enough to be, among other things, considered a potential candidate for Governor or even President?

Speaking of which, what was his tenure as Gotham City Police Commissioner actually like?
 
Greater Virginia Preview - Senator Harry Byrd

Greater Virginia - The Civil War

In June 1861 unionists Virginians, largely from the more mountainous western part of the state, met in Wheeling to declare that under the Virginia Declaration of Rights the secession convention, convened by the Legislature rather than the people was null and void. Furthermore, the government that would declare such an illegal assembly is itself void and that this Wheeling Convention was the legitimate government. Francis Pierpont was elected Governor and this government was recognized as legitimate by President Abraham Lincoln. Despite the Union victory at Bull Run, the hesitation of Union forces to pursue retreating Confederate forces before they set up defenses at Fredericksburg meant that the territory claimed by the Restored Government of Virginia would constantly be threatened throughout the war. This Union victory, however, would result in more unionist minded legislators joining the unionist government in Wheeling. While there had long been a movement for secession within the ranks of western Virginia, which made up the bulk of the unionist government, the prevalence of legislators from the rest of Virginia, and President Lincoln's own disapproval, squashed efforts to create a new state of Kanwaha. In June 1863 the government would relocate to the city of Alexandria and in December Francis Pierpont would be elected to another term. 1864 would see a new state Constitution declared abolishing slavery and disenfranchising Confederates once the state is fully restored. Governor Pierpont would be elected to the United States replacing Unionist John S Carlisle in the 1864-1865 Senate elections, and would be seated alongside Senator Waitman Wiley who had been serving Virginia since the onset of the war. As such, it would be Governor Boreman who would re-establish the government in Richmond after it's capture by Union forces.

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The Finnish People's Party (FPP) (Finnish: Suomalainen kansanpuolue (SKP), Swedish: Finska folkpartiet (FFP)) is a Finnish nationalist political party which was founded in 1962 as the Finnish People's Front. The party was formed by members of radical wing of the Democratic Coalition Party, who had left their party due to disagreements over the official party line, which was to push for greater Finnish autonomy rather than full independence. The FPP has been the largest political party in the Finnish parliament since 2012 and in government since 2015, first in a coalition with the Democratic Coalition Party and since the 2019 election it has been governing as a minority government, supported by the Republican Socialist Party.

During the 60s, 70s and 80s the party was considered a fringe force in Finnish politics, often accused of ties to militant Finnish separatists. The party's first leader, Tapani Hämäläinen, made a name for himself through a number of controversial actions, such as appearing in support of the defendants at the trial following the 1972 Tammerfors Riots, or often using his speeches to urge people to show their displeasure towards the Stockholm government by vandalizing Swedish-language street signs. Faced with a party accused of at best tolerating or at worst instigating harassment of the quarter of the Finnish population which had Swedish as their first language, the rest of the parties in the Finnish parliament erected a strong cordon sanitaire around the FPP during these decades. The party began a journey towards moderation in 1987 with the election of Sauli Rajamäki as party leader, who distanced himself from previous leaders' association with extreme groups and emphasized that the only legitimate way to fight for Finnish independence was through peaceful democratic elections.

Strengthened by the party's best results ever in the 1991 election, Rajamäki moved to broaden the party's appeal further during the early 90s with changes in the party constitution which saw all references to the party aiming to be the defender of the Finnish-speaking population of Finland struck, replaced with text that instead defined the party's aims as being to represent all Finns, regardless of whether they spoke Finnish or Swedish. This was a major shift in direction for a party which in its early days had elected MPs which portrayed Swedish-speaking Finns as colonizers who would be deported to Sweden upon Finnish independence.

"We need to become a party that any Finn in the country could consider voting for. As I've often said that means that the worker in the paper mill needs to be able to tell his Swedish-speaking neighbour that he voted for the People's Party without feeling any shame. But it also means that his neighbour should be able to look him in the eyes with pride and say: 'So did I'."
-Speech by Sauli Rajamäki at the 1994 FPP party conference in Vasa

The other Finnish political parties were initially sceptical of these changes, viewing them as a little more than superficial, so the cordon sanitaire remained for most of the 90s in the Finnish Parliament. However things were different on the municipal level which was where the FPP was finally let in from the cold and allowed to take part in coalitions with other political parties, often as a junior partner to the Democratic Coalition Party. That party would also be the first to break the taboo against working with the FPP in government, by inviting them to join a coalition after the 2000 election. From 2000 to 2008 the FPP was truly in power for the first time, with Sauli Rajamäki serving in the government as Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance alongside five other FPP ministers. The coalition broke apart shortly before the 2008 due to disagreements over farming subsidies, and afterwards the Democratic Coalition opted to join the Labour Party in a grand coalition instead, making the FPP the leading opposition party. Rajamäki remained as leader while in opposition, leading the party to a tremendous success in the 2012 election where it became the largest party in parliament, albeit by a slim one seat margin. The grand coalition continued in spite of this setback, but Sauli Rajamäki was looking more and more like a Premier-in-waiting. However tragedy struck in October 2014 when Rajamäki was found dead in his bed by his wife, an autopsy later revealing that he had suffered an aneurysm in his sleep, killing him two weeks shy of his 68th birthday.

The leadership was quickly thrust upon Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen, a 30 year old rising star in the party who had only been elected Deputy Leader the year before. She would only be in the job for a couple of months before being faced with her first electoral test, as the Labour-DCP grand coalition collapsed at the start of February, setting the stage for an early general election. The election saw the FPP underperform slightly compared to the opinion polls, but it was still a significant improvement on the 2012 result. With another Labour-DCP coalition impossible given the results, Jonna Stenberg Mäkninen entered the official Premier's residence Villa Aura in Åbo as the first FPP Premier.

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Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen is an unusual figure within the Finnish People's Party not only because she was born and grew up in Sweden, but because she did not grow up in a Finnish-speaking household. She was born as Jonna Viktoria Stenberg in Härnösand, Sweden to Oskar and Johanna Stenberg, both professors at the University of Härnösand. At the age of 11 she showed a great deal of interest in learning more about the Finnish heritage that she had on her mothers side of the family, and in particular with learning the Finnish language, something which was greatly encouraged by her mother as her parents had not passed down the language to her due to dying while she was still young. The studies of the Finnish language and history eventually led her to enroll in a Finnish-speaking secondary school in Vasa at age 13 when her parents had moved to the city to take up lecturing positions at the Bothnian University. This was when she first came in contact with the Young Finns, the youth league of the Finnish People's Party, an organisation which appeared to share her passion for all things Finnish. While she hadn't shown a great deal of interest in politics prior to joining the youth league, the discussions at the weekly meetings awakened a keen interest, and soon she was handing out leaflets and participating in school debates as if she had been a member for six years, not six months.

When her parents moved on to new positions at Torneå University she brought her new interest with her to her new city, becoming President of the local chapter of the Young Finns. There she made a name for herself in the local press as a prominent leader for the Yes campaign in the 2001 Torne Valley referendum, in which Torneå and a number of majority Finnish-speaking municipalities in the Swedish county of Norrbotten held a referendum on whether they should join Uleåborg County and become a part of Finland. While the referendum was ultimately lost by a narrow 53-47 margin, it helped Stenberg to make a name for herself within the youth league, helping her to get elected to its national board at the 2002 conference. The same year she was elected as the first and only FPP representative on the Torneå City Council at age 18, further cementing her status as a rising star within the party. Upon moving to Åbo in 2006 to pursue her Master's degree in Economic history she stepped down from the Torneå City Council and appeared to be stepping back from frontline politics for a while. Though she didn't stay away for long as the FPP selected her as their candidate in the Åbo St. Karins constituency for the 2007 Nordic general election. While the constituency was majority Finnish-speaking by a margin of 70 to 30, the relatively affluent urban middle class that lived there had never been particularly friendly towards the FPP. The best an FPP could usually hope for in Åbo St. Karins was to break 15%, but this was not usual circumstances.

The incumbent Liberal MP Viktor Segerström was first elected in 1986 and had served as Minister of Transport since 2001, in that role being a crucial driving force behind the planned rail tunnel and bridge combo which would connect Åbo and Stockholm through Åland. Unfortunately for him that project had angered a large number of environmental campaigners and local NIMBYs in the constituency who was fearful of the impact the railway would have on the environment and the local community, given that it would pass through the constituency. The Labour candidate taking him on looked set for victory in what was usually a Labour-Liberal marginal, but his campaign was derailed early on when a number of homophobic and sexist remarks came to light. Then you had Stenberg. As a young woman from a family of middle class academics who grew up speaking Swedish at home, she was the antithesis of the stereotypical People's Party representative: a slightly overweight middle aged working class man from the countryside who could barely speak a full sentence in Swedish. This was not the reason people voted for her, but it was reason people started listening to what she was saying. The two big parties were caught completely off guard by the unexpectedly strong FPP campaign and scrambled to catch up, but it was too little too late. In an incredibly close three-way race Jonna Stenberg became the new MP for Åbo St. Karins by a margin of 976 votes.

Overnight she had become a major national sensation, branded as the future of FPP and invited to just about every interview you could think of. But in parliament Stenberg opted to take an entirely different approach, careful not to make too much noise and focusing entirely on constituency service and crafting policy proposals which actually had a chance of getting through the Riksdag. This didn't get her more attention in the media, but it did give her a reputation within the party as someone who had substance and was something more than the post-election headlines. Having proved a relatively popular MP in her first term it was then no surprise when she was reelected with a substantially increased majority four years later, by then having married and changed her name to Stenberg Mäkinen. Realizing what an asset she was the FPP wasted little time in offering her a spot on the regional list for Finland Proper in the upcoming Finnish parliamentary election, an offer she easily accepted. This was the first time she was faced with major criticism from the press and the voters, who accused her of ditching her constituents and running away to a another job only six months after being reelected. Clarifying that she would still remain as the MP for Åbo St. Karins didn't really help things either, with constituents complaining in the papers that the were under the impression that they were voting for a full time MP, not a part time one.

While that controversy was a bit of a bump in the road, it certainly did nothing to stop Stenberg Mäkinens meteoric rise through the ranks of the party. For all the rules and democratic traditions in the local chapters of the party, once you were at the top there was only one person that mattered. If Sauli Rajamäki didn't take a liking to you then you definitely had no future in the parliamentary party, but if he did you could expect great things to come your way, and he certainly took a liking to Stenberg Mäkinen. When his longtime deputy Merja Sakala announced her retirement he was the one who urged Stenberg Mäkinen to run for the position, seeing her as the perfect person to go into the next election campaign with. He was an old farmer from Hirvensalmi nearing his 70th birthday, she was a young academic from Åbo who hadn't even turned 30 yet. They could provide the perfect balance between experience and change, with his precense appealing to the base and her potential to attract voters who otherwise wouldn't consider voting FPP. Alas it was not to be, Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen would be the one who led the FPP back into government, becoming the party's first Premier in the process. Her five years in office have had their ups and downs, with a generally strong economy being of great benefit to the government, helping the FPP sail through reelection in 2019 with a substantially increased seat share, enabling the party to govern alone with support from the small pro-independence Republican Socialist Party.
 
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I would love to see more of these. What happend to Jason, tim and Damian? And will you do the same for superman and wonder women?
Absolutely amazing box.

So, was Bruce Wayne considered a vapid, self-indulgent playboy in his lifetime (at least until his tenure as Police Commissioner), or was he outspoken enough to be, among other things, considered a potential candidate for Governor or even President?

Speaking of which, what was his tenure as Gotham City Police Commissioner actually like?

I first have to admit I'm not the world's biggest comics fan, nor the most well read comic historian. That being said, I partially based this on the pre-Crisis Earth 2, where time actually did progress and characters aged. Bruce Wayne was born in the mid 1910's, had his adventures with other superheroes, got old, married, and retired, Dick Grayson took over as Batman, etc. I've never liked the sliding timescale, and inability for some characters to fully age and retire. Some do, like the original Flash, Jay Garrick, but Superman is never going to officially grow old and retire, nor is Batman. I give his date of death in March 1986 because that's when the last issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths was published.

Bruce Wayne was initially seen as a "vapid, self-indulgent playboy," at least when he made his debut as Batman. But as time went on, he was seen more and more as a leading citizen of Gotham, as he started to do more for his city as Bruce Wayne, and not just Batman. His adoption of the tragically orphaned Dick Grayson, his work against gun violence, his work on criminal rehabilitation and mental health services (still pretty controversial at the time), and his marriage to a reformed criminal cemented as Gotham's Old Man. A real pillar of the community, not some man locked away in his gated estate.

I made him a Republican because I assumed a rich guy in 20th century New Jersey would probably be a Republican, even if a liberal, anti-gun east coast Republican. (I also headcanon Clark Kent as being torn between Alf Landon in 1936, because he's a fellow Kansas progressive, and President Roosevelt, who he greatly admires, but that's another prospective wikibox for another time.) As for electoral politics, he never really tried himself. For most of his young adult years, he was Batman, and after that he was a happily married man with a daughter. He wanted to enjoy his twilight years instead of constantly seeking more empires to conquer. Although he probably did get involved in politics via fundraisers and endorsements and the like.

Since he knew from personal experience, as a private citizen and as Batman, what Gotham's police forces were like (ie, who were the good cops, who were the bad cops, how both acted, what made good cops go bad, etc.), he worked low-key to clean up and professionalize the force. He's a civilian looking over the police, not one of them. Even if he had a lot of connections and respect from the forces, it would be difficult, and probably counter-productive, to just start ordering people around and making large, unilateral changes. Eventually, after a new mayor was sworn in, he decided he'd served long enough (just over 7 years), he'd left the police force in good hands for the new mayor, and retired to spend time with family.

Batfamily characters not mentioned here, like the future Robins, well they don't exist in this timeline. Or if they do, they were never Bruce's Robins. I'll leave their fates ambiguous for now.

As for whether or not I'll make more boxes in this universe? Eh, maybe. This was just a trial run, to see how much info I could put into one relatively small box and write-up, and to see what people think about it. I enjoyed it for one.
 
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The Parliament of Hawaii is the national legislature of the Republic of Hawaii. Its powers are granted under Article V of the Constitution of Hawaii. Parliament is a bicameral body consisting of a 96-member House of Representatives and a 48-member Senate. Both houses sit in separate chambers at Parliament House in the capital of Honolulu, on the island of Oahu.

Hawaii's system of government is so-called "Washminster" hybrid, consisting of a parliamentary element patterned after the British Westminster system and a presidential element modeled on the United States system. Accordingly, the structure, functions, and procedures of the parliament are based on its British and American counterparts.

The House of Representatives has a fixed term of four years: although it can be dissolved early, the House elected in the ensuing snap election merely serves out what remains of its predecessor's term. The elected Senators serve for six-year terms, staggered so that 16 elected Senators - one-third of the entire Senate, excluding Senators-for-life - is up for election every two years. As a result, House and Senate elections almost always coincide; this is further enforced by the fact House elections are held midway through the Presidential election cycle, and the requirement that ordinarily-scheduled elections to both Houses be held on the first Tuesday after November 1.

History
Parliament is a descendant of the Legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom, created in the 1840 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii and continued in the subsequent 1852 Constitution as the Legislature of the Hawaiian Islands, consisting of a House of Representatives and a House of Nobles. Following the overthrow and fall of the Kingdom in 1894 this Legislature (now having a Senate as its upper house) became the legislative body of the short-lived First Republic of Hawaii, and shortly afterwards under the newly organized Territory of Hawaii following the annexation by the United States in 1898.

Upon Hawaii's handover to the United Kingdom as a UN Trust Territory 49 years later, the Hawaiian Legislature was reorganized; the two elective Chambers of the old territorial legislature were merged into the new lower house, the Legislative Assembly, while a Legislative Council appointed by the British Governor was established as the new upper house. The Proposed 1950 Hawaii Constitution, intended for a hypothetical return to American jurisdiction as a U.S. State, would have reverted this change.

In 1959, electoral law reforms spearheaded by Premier Oren E. Long restored the pre-1947 legislative arrangements, with a Senate elected by Single Transferrable Vote (though retaining the so-called "official members" appointed by the Governor) and a House of Representatives chosen under a West German-inspired mixed-member system. It was this legislature which became the current Parliament of Hawaii under the 1975 Hawaii Independence Order.

Members and terms

The Senate consists of 48 elected members, chosen from four constituencies - corresponding to the four counties of Hawaii - by Single Transferable Vote. In addition, up to five Senators are appointed by the President for a lifetime term from among notable "independent and impartial persons". Former Presidents also become senators-for-life once their term expires.

The 96 members of the House are elected to four-year terms under a mixed-member proportional system. 48 Members are elected from single-memebr districts under first-past-the post, and the other 48 are elected from closed nationwide lists, allocated among the parties by the Huntington-Hill system to ensure overall proportionality. In order to qualify for list seats, a party must obtain at least 5% of the vote or have at least one elected constituency MP.
 
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The Finnish People's Party (FPP) (Finnish: Suomalainen kansanpuolue (SKP), Swedish: Finska folkpartiet (FFP)) is a Finnish nationalist political party which was founded in 1962 as the Finnish People's Front. The party was formed by members of radical wing of the Democratic Coalition Party, who had left their party due to disagreements over the official party line, which was to push for greater Finnish autonomy rather than full independence. The FPP has been the largest political party in the Finnish parliament since 2012 and in government since 2015, first in a coalition with the Democratic Coalition Party and since the 2019 election it has been governing as a minority government, supported by the Republican Socialist Party.

During the 60s, 70s and 80s the party was considered a fringe force in Finnish politics, often accused of ties to militant Finnish separatists. The party's first leader, Tapani Hämäläinen, made a name for himself through a number of controversial actions, such as appearing in support of the defendants at the trial following the 1972 Tammerfors Riots, or often using his speeches to urge people to show their displeasure towards the Stockholm government by vandalizing Swedish-language street signs. Faced with a party accused of at best tolerating or at worst instigating harassment of the quarter of the Finnish population which had Swedish as their first language, the rest of the parties in the Finnish parliament erected a strong cordon sanitaire around the FPP during these decades. The party began a journey towards moderation in 1987 with the election of Sauli Rajamäki as party leader, who distanced himself from previous leaders' association with extreme groups and emphasized that the only legitimate way to fight for Finnish independence was through peaceful democratic elections.

Strengthened by the party's best results ever in the 1991 election, Rajamäki moved to broaden the party's appeal further during the early 90s with changes in the party constitution which saw all references to the party aiming to be the defender of the Finnish-speaking population of Finland struck, replaced with text that instead defined the party's aims as being to represent all Finns, regardless of whether they spoke Finnish or Swedish. This was a major shift in direction for a party which in its early days had elected MPs which portrayed Swedish-speaking Finns as colonizers who would be deported to Sweden upon Finnish independence.

"We need to become a party that any Finn in the country could consider voting for. As I've often said that means that the worker in the paper mill needs to be able to tell his Swedish-speaking neighbour that he voted for the People's Party without feeling any shame. But it also means that his neighbour should be able to look him in the eyes with pride and say: 'So did I'."
-Speech by Sauli Rajamäki at the 1994 FPP party conference in Vasa

The other Finnish political parties were initially sceptical of these changes, viewing them as a little more than superficial, so the cordon sanitaire remained for most of the 90s in the Finnish Parliament. However things were different on the municipal level which was where the FPP was finally let in from the cold and allowed to take part in coalitions with other political parties, often as a junior partner to the Democratic Coalition Party. That party would also be the first to break the taboo against working with the FPP in government, by inviting them to join a coalition after the 2000 election. From 2000 to 2008 the FPP was truly in power for the first time, with Sauli Rajamäki serving in the government as Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance alongside five other FPP ministers. The coalition broke apart shortly before the 2008 due to disagreements over farming subsidies, and afterwards the Democratic Coalition opted to join the Labour Party in a grand coalition instead, making the FPP the leading opposition party. Rajamäki remained as leader while in opposition, leading the party to a tremendous success in the 2012 election where it became the largest party in parliament, albeit by a slim one seat margin. The grand coalition continued in spite of this setback, but Sauli Rajamäki was looking more and more like a Premier-in-waiting. However tragedy struck in October 2014 when Rajamäki was found dead in his bed by his wife, an autopsy later revealing that he had suffered an aneurysm in his sleep, killing him two weeks shy of his 68th birthday.

The leadership was quickly thrust upon Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen, a 30 year old rising star in the party who had only been elected Deputy Leader the year before. She would only be in the job for a couple of months before being faced with her first electoral test, as the Labour-DCP grand coalition collapsed at the start of February, setting the stage for an early general election. The election saw the FPP underperform slightly compared to the opinion polls, but it was still a significant improvement on the 2012 result. With another Labour-DCP coalition impossible given the results, Jonna Stenberg Mäkninen entered the official Premier's residence Villa Aura in Åbo as the first FPP Premier.

View attachment 532416
Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen is an unusual figure within the Finnish People's Party not only because she was born and grew up in Sweden, but because she did not grow up in a Finnish-speaking household. She was born as Jonna Viktoria Stenberg in Härnösand, Sweden to Oskar and Johanna Stenberg, both professors at the University of Härnösand. At the age of 11 she showed a great deal of interest in learning more about the Finnish heritage that she had on her mothers side of the family, and in particular with learning the Finnish language, something which was greatly encouraged by her mother as her parents had not passed down the language to her due to dying while she was still young. The studies of the Finnish language and history eventually led her to enroll in a Finnish-speaking secondary school in Vasa at age 13 when her parents had moved to the city to take up lecturing positions at the Bothnian University. This was when she first came in contact with the Young Finns, the youth league of the Finnish People's Party, an organisation which appeared to share her passion for all things Finnish. While she hadn't shown a great deal of interest in politics prior to joining the youth league, the discussions at the weekly meetings awakened a keen interest, and soon she was handing out leaflets and participating in school debates as if she had been a member for six years, not six months.

When her parents moved on to new positions at Torneå University she brought her new interest with her to her new city, becoming President of the local chapter of the Young Finns. There she made a name for herself in the local press as a prominent leader for the Yes campaign in the 2001 Torne Valley referendum, in which Torneå and a number of majority Finnish-speaking municipalities in the Swedish county of Norrbotten held a referendum on whether they should join Uleåborg County and become a part of Finland. While the referendum was ultimately lost by a narrow 53-47 margin, it helped Stenberg to make a name for herself within the youth league, helping her to get elected to its national board at the 2002 conference. The same year she was elected as the first and only FPP representative on the Torneå City Council at age 18, further cementing her status as a rising star within the party. Upon moving to Åbo in 2006 to pursue her Master's degree in Economic history she stepped down from the Torneå City Council and appeared to be stepping back from frontline politics for a while. Though she didn't stay away for long as the FPP selected her as their candidate in the Åbo St. Karins constituency for the 2007 Nordic general election. While the constituency was majority Finnish-speaking by a margin of 70 to 30, the relatively affluent urban middle class that lived there had never been particularly friendly towards the FPP. The best an FPP could usually hope for in Åbo St. Karins was to break 15%, but this was not usual circumstances.

The incumbent Liberal MP Viktor Segerström was first elected in 1986 and had served as Minister of Transport since 2001, in that role being a crucial driving force behind the planned rail tunnel and bridge combo which would connect Åbo and Stockholm through Åland. Unfortunately for him that project had angered a large number of environmental campaigners and local NIMBYs in the constituency who was fearful of the impact the railway would have on the environment and the local community, given that it would pass through the constituency. The Labour candidate taking him on looked set for victory in what was usually a Labour-Liberal marginal, but his campaign was derailed early on when a number of homophobic and sexist remarks came to light. Then you had Stenberg. As a young woman from a family of middle class academics who grew up speaking Swedish at home, she was the antithesis of the stereotypical People's Party representative: a slightly overweight middle aged working class man from the countryside who could barely speak a full sentence in Swedish. This was not the reason people voted for her, but it was reason people started listening to what she was saying. The two big parties were caught completely off guard by the unexpectedly strong FPP campaign and scrambled to catch up, but it was too little too late. In an incredibly close three-way race Jonna Stenberg became the new MP for Åbo St. Karins by a margin of 976 votes.

Overnight she had become a major national sensation, branded as the future of FPP and invited to just about every interview you could think of. But in parliament Stenberg opted to take an entirely different approach, careful not to make too much noise and focusing entirely on constituency service and crafting policy proposals which actually had a chance of getting through the Riksdag. This didn't get her more attention in the media, but it did give her a reputation within the party as someone who had substance and was something more than the post-election headlines. Having proved a relatively popular MP in her first term it was then no surprise when she was reelected with a substantially increased majority four years later, by then having married and changed her name to Stenberg Mäkinen. Realizing what an asset she was the FPP wasted little time in offering her a spot on the regional list for Finland Proper in the upcoming Finnish parliamentary election, an offer she easily accepted. This was the first time she was faced with major criticism from the press and the voters, who accused her of ditching her constituents and running away to a another job only six months after being reelected. Clarifying that she would still remain as the MP for Åbo St. Karins didn't really help things either, with constituents complaining in the papers that the were under the impression that they were voting for a full time MP, not a part time one.

While that controversy was a bit of a bump in the road, it certainly did nothing to stop Stenberg Mäkinens meteoric rise through the ranks of the party. For all the rules and democratic traditions in the local chapters of the party, once you were at the top there was only one person that mattered. If Sauli Rajamäki didn't take a liking to you then you definitely had no future in the parliamentary party, but if he did you could expect great things to come your way, and he certainly took a liking to Stenberg Mäkinen. When his longtime deputy Merja Sakala announced her retirement he was the one who urged Stenberg Mäkinen to run for the position, seeing her as the perfect person to go into the next election campaign with. He was an old farmer from Hirvensalmi nearing his 70th birthday, she was a young academic from Åbo who hadn't even turned 30 yet. They could provide the perfect balance between experience and change, with his precense appealing to the base and her potential to attract voters who otherwise wouldn't consider voting FPP. Alas it was not to be, Jonna Stenberg Mäkinen would be the one who led the FPP back into government, becoming the party's first Premier in the process. Her five years in office have had their ups and downs, with a generally strong economy being of great benefit to the government, helping the FPP sail through reelection in 2019 with a substantially increased seat share, enabling the party to govern alone with support from the small pro-independence Republican Socialist Party.
This is very great and unique. Thank you.
 
Here's something I've been making for a while(kind of a obcession to be honest). The Japanese Archipelago in the aftermath of the superb 'Decisive Darkness' by @The Red . I came up with details to fill in the gap, some lore like ABOD, but the entire premise belongs to DD.

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This is a superb piece of work. It feels odd being the person who wrote the original work but wanting to know more at the same time! Thanks so much.
 

Deleted member 92121

This is a superb piece of work. It feels odd being the person who wrote the original work but wanting to know more at the same time! Thanks so much.
Truly my pleasure. The endgame of your story was always really intriguing. I always imagined writing a series of interviews from the point of view of a journalist going around the different Japans. Objectivist Morioka always fascinated me the most. But really, thanks for the high praise!

I love this.
I didn't even expect anyone to catch that! :p
 
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