1890 - November
Manhattan
One of the worst kept secrets in Manhattan was the impending retirement of John Abbott. As expected in the summer of 1890, Abbott pronounced that he would not be seeking reelection to his Parliamentary seat in Mississauga. This, naturally, produced a free-for-all among the powerful men prior to the 1890 November election as they sought to influence Parliamentary votes for the inevitable "recommendation" to the King for First Lord of the Treasury over the next five years.
Adlai Stevenson of Chicago had served as Postmaster General in the previous years under Abbott until he was discovered effectively firing Postal employees not supporting Abbott's government. While Abbott naturally desired to reward followers, he was also adamantly in favor of the concept that the overwhelming number of public positions should not be patronage posts for any given political group, liable to be fired to hire loyal supporters. This had been one of the few great scandals of the Abbott ministry despite John Abbott being cleared by all of having any involvement.
But Stevenson's sacking did not mean he was any less popular in Chicago and was easily reelected in 1890. A keen observer of political winds, Stevenson had his own following and was considered one of the Dark Horses of the coming election.
Of course, by 1890, EVERY Candidate appeared to be a Dark Horse as this might have been one of the few Parliamentary Elections where a clear favorite or limited number of favorites existed.
Stevenson was a proponent of "Free Silver", expanding the money supply to help debtors and agriculturalists in the west.
Grover Cleveland of New Jersey carried many of Stevenson's politics...except he was in favor of a strong Gold standard and low tariffs (popular among consumers)
Benjamin Harrison of Miami was in favor of higher tariffs to support the growing manufacturing industry of the nation. Harrison was also the grandson of the celebrated Indian fighter, William Henry Harrison.
James G. Blaine of Sagadahock (Eastern Maine) would support a strong American LB. backed by gold as well as expansion of the American Navy, currently rapidly rebuilding after the Krakatoa disaster. He also was more interested in foreign affairs than most candidates and encouraged total political neutrality with no alliances other than protecting the "territorial integrity" of their smaller neighbors to the west (in an obvious message to Spain, the only other likely aggressor beyond America itself in the region).
Political parties had been forming for generations but the election of 1890 would widely be held as the first since the formation of the country where effectively every candidate received an endorsement of one party or another, often multiple parties at once. Sometimes these party recommendations came from factions utterly mutually exclusive to one another. For example, a candidate in Boston was selected as the Candidate for the "Free Silver" party AND the "Gold Standard" party.
There were parties ranging from "Labor", "Radical" (which, conversely, had few "radical" ideas), "Loyalist" (whatever this meant), "National" (which focused on effective Empire building abroad), "American" (which was anti-Catholic), "Free Silver", "Gold Standard", "Trade Protections", "Anti-Trade Protections", "Women's Rights", etc, etc, etc.
However, there was a growing belief that eventually, the Parties would merge into two or three factions, but this had not yet come to pass, largely due to the complexity and size of the nation which provided a heterogenous political spectrum. But it was obvious that this was coming, Eventually, the "Gold Standard" faction would align with the Manufacturing sector. The "Free Silver" naturally coincided with the Agricultural movement but also the "Labor" group, which was odd as most farmers were self-employed.
In the end, the political parties were merging in manners which seemed incongruous and illogical other than these other interest groups being WILLING to support their interest group, regardless of whether or not it mattered to their own.
Politics truly did make strange bedfellows.
New Caanan (formerly Western Southern Africa)
By 1890, the Jewish rebels of Southern Africa knew their cause was won against the East India Company...but were already fighting among themselves to win the peace. Debates were waged about the nature of the new government. Would it be a monarchy, a pure democracy, an oligarchy, a religious theocracy?
Divisions between German and Pole, Russian and Austria struck the community. Ashkenazi faced Sephardic, Rabbinical versus Reformed. It seemed that the Jewish State was already facing eventual extinction.
In hopes of unifying the nation, the hastily convened Diet would seek a symbol which all could rally around. In the 19th century, this meant a King.
But who?
There were a few battlefield heroes but one or two battles won did not make a great King. We were hardly talking about King David here.
Eventually, the infighting became so bitter than any local candidate was viewed as anathema to the rest. A "foreign" King must be selected. But, unlike the Christians or Muslims or even Buddhists, there were no Jewish monarchies from which to borrow a second son. No, the Jews must seek their own monarch among the best of their kind.
Throughout the past twenty years, the Russian tea magnate Kalman Wissotsky had sponsored countless Jews to migrate from Poland, Russia, the German states, the Habsburg Empire, etc, to Southern Africa and Palestine. Few Jews had such a good reputation among the Jewish world without any significant feuds. Hardly a Southern African Jew could be found that HAD NOT benefited from the generosity of Wissotsky. It seemed this was the only real candidate.
But would he come if called?
Wissotsky had only supported Southern African migration as Israel or "Zion", the ancient land of the Jews, was perhaps not interested in hundreds of thousands or even millions of Jewish immigrants. While many were taken by Palestine, there seemed to be no will to give the Jews their own homeland in the Levant. Instead, Russians, Balkan Muslims, Copts, Egyptian Shi'as and others had been encouraged to migrate to this region (by now vastly outnumbering the native Arabs) more than the Jews, who were more accepted than welcomed.
But Southern Africa, under the East India Company, desired to take ALL Europeans regardless of creed (as was the EIC's wont) and eventually Wissotsky would sponsor uncounted thousands of European Jews to migrate AND provide interest free loans for land acquisition beyond that offered for free by the EIC. While this strategy had eventually backfired upon the Company, the Jews had certainly obtained their long-time desire for a homeland dominated demographically by Jews.
Over the course of the past two years, over fifty thousand of the region's 200,000 non-Jews had migrated out voluntarily...and another 25,000 native Africans forced north and east into tribal or EIC lands by the Jewish militias. Indeed, by 1890, there were fewer black faces by percentage in the Jewish State than in the still-Dutch Cape Colony, which was actively seeking to expel many of the native Africans still within her borders and entice as many Dutch (or at least Protestants, preferably Lutherans) to the colony as possible. Almost 90% of the Jewish State was now actually Jewish. Similar to the Dutch, the Jewish State would encourage FURTHER Jewish immigration from Europe where over 2,500,000 Jews still resided, mostly in Poland. Perhaps 50,000 per year (a large number but only about 2% of the Jewish European population) arrived by boat from 1890 to 1920, well below the demographic increase of Jewish Europeans in general.
Though shocked by the call to the throne, Kalman Wissotsky would agree to migrate himself as he understood better than most the ethnic and sectional divisions of the Jewish people. In truth, "King Kalman I", now in his mid-sixties, suspected the "Kingdom" would be overthrown sooner rather than later and only agreed to the throne in hopes of unifying the people somehow.
King Kalman would agree only to accept the throne upon the condition that ALL resident males, including non-Jews, be granted the franchise (the third country in the world to due so after Anahuac and the country of Iceland now granted "Home Rule" by the King of Denmark) to grant universal male suffrage). He stated that he lacked the wisdom to govern the concerns dear to the hearts of ALL subjects and required the advice and council of ALL the peoples of his realm. He also stated that he would immediately abdicate if ANY man, be he Christian European or African, Jew or Heathen, be stripped of this privilege (he later amended this to exclude convicted felons).
Kalman pointed out that Jews had been accepted as equal citizens in Palestine, France, America and, at least legally, in many German states, the Berber Kingdom and the assorted British states and therefore he would never accept to rule a nation which refused to return the compliment to non-Jews in his own realm.
This was accepted with only moderate resistance (many Jews preferred to withdraw at least POLITICAL rights to non-Jews) and King Kalman I of....well, it took some more time to determine a name.
The term "Zionism", named after Jerusalem, had been thrown out a bit over the years meaning that Jews should return/find sactuary in their ancient homeland of Palestine. While many received succor there, it was obvious that none of the ethnic groups of the region desired to be home to four million Jews. Eventually, Kalman himself would spend more of his fabulous wealth aiding his people to migrate to Southern Africa.
Thus, "Zionism" was no longer an ideal and the concept of "New Zion" replaced. But what then to call the nation?
Eventually, names were suggested and discarded such as Israel and "Zion" as they were geographically too directed towards the Levant. But "Canaan" had not been used for millennia. Almost out of exhaustion over the debate, the "Knesset" (the Canaanite version of Parliament or Diet) would choose "New Canaan" as the name of the new Jewish State. This seemed reasonable as much of the old Jewish state had resulted in the conquest of the Old Canaan. Here, the modern Jews had conquered the African state from her fore-bearers of African or EIC extraction.
King Kalman I, himself exhausted with the matter, accepted "New Canaan" without reservation.
To his surprise (he still expected a Coup or major rebellion to his presence within a year or two), the first few years of Jewish rule were mild. Kalman surprisingly found an ally to the west in the Dutch Cape Colony. For years, the Cape Colony had sought to encourage Dutch (or at least Protestant, preferably Lutheran, migration to the Cape in hopes of demographically challenging the EIC and later "New Canaan") immigration and succeeded to increase the Dutch (i.e. WHITE though not all "WHITE" were "Dutch") population to 300,000 but still faced several challenges from African tribes to the north. An alliance was struck, perhaps believed by BOTH sides to be temporary given the years of distrust, and the Cape Colony (by this point more and more self-sufficient and self-governing) worked together with New Canaan against any tribal cultures which encroached upon their borders.
Both New Canaan and the Cape Colony, both of which once desired large numbers of African laborers to do the work the Dutch and Jews abhorred, would launch wars of aggression against neighboring tribes with the intent of pushing them further and further north.
Indeed, by 1890, the Cape Colony political classes were already considering the idea of "Home Rule" without further Dutch Republic interference.