mortonofski
Donor
(sees grey seat beside the rump PC caucus) Hi. John Nunziata! Also fascinating to see Liberal Ralph Klein.
Does Lucien Bouchard still lose his leg in 1994?
Does Lucien Bouchard still lose his leg in 1994?
Exocet - the Effects of a different Falklands
- Thread starter Nevran
- Start date
Good spot! I got a kick out of placing him as a far away as possible from the Liberal caucus in the diagram. The reason why he left the party ahead of schedule was mostly due to Martin's leadership and the tensions with the Rat Pack.
I know a few people on here, who are far more knowledgeable about Canada than me, have played with the idea of Klein becoming a Liberal MP based on him running nationally for the party if Chrétien won in 1984 . Considering that's how I started Canada, alongside both John Turner's more successful western outreach (compared to OTL) and Martin's earlier leadership, it was too interesting not to do.
Bouchard, luckily, avoids the flesh-eating disease which takes his leg in OTL and is in good health for the upcoming independence referendum.
1995 Conservative Party leadership election
After the crushing defeat of 1995, Conservatives were forced, yet again, to enter a period of reflection and soul-searching. 1995 had seemingly destroyed the idea that 1993 was a fluke, and killed the hubristic notion that the Conservatives were the natural party of government. The scale of the defeat was also unprecedented, with the party losing heavily across the board, seemingly without an identifiable trend. Much of this defeat could be blamed on Hurd’s ineffective leadership of the party, which seemed increasingly out-of-touch to the public and their concerns.
Without being in government, the party’s infighting got more brutal, especially with regards to Europe and the common currency. Hurd’s ‘speak-no-evil’ strategy did little to unify the party. Euroskeptics kept sniping from the backbenches arguing that any future constitutional change, such as the introduction of a common currency, should first be put to a national referendum rather than left to Parliament. Michael Heseltine, would also shift his position, now out of power and government, becoming a forceful advocate for adopting the common currency.
So, when Hurd resigned, the party seemed to be ready for a slug-match. Representing the europhillic wing, with the endorsements of Heseltine, King, Heath and many other prominent One Nation Tories, was the former Foreign Secretary (who was never tarred by Black Tuesday) Chris Patten. His campaign represented a clean break from the cautious Hurd. On Europe, he argued that Britain’s place should be “at the heart of Europe” whilst on social issues, he said the party needed to accept both social liberalisation and open its doors to women and minorities, or else they would be consigned to the 20th century. Borrowing a phrase from Portillo’s successful campaign, he presented himself as a ‘New Conservative’ and ran accordingly, to make the party fit for the 21st century.
If Chris Patten represented the future, then Ann Widdecombe was the candidate of the past. Doubling down on euroskepticism, her campaign was supported by the right, who believed her to be the next Thatcher. Her cutting appraisals of her competitors and her social conservative bent gained her attention but proved to be merely hype. She gained only 10% of the vote in the first ballot, the clear loser, with the right instead backing Michael Howard, who had similar policies, but lacked the fire-breathing qualities which doomed Widdecombe.
The continuity candidate was Shadow Foreign Secretary Ian Lang. Like Hurd before him, Lang attempted to appeal to both wings of the party but struggled in his campaign after difficult questions were asked about his vote against Scottish devolution and his subsequent resignation from Heseltine’s shadow cabinet. Further, he was seen as a potential liability thanks to his miniscule majority, being only 200 votes ahead of the SNP candidate. Lang would be forced out in the second ballot, after Widdecombe’s supporters coalesced around Howard.
Howard’s right-wing campaign may have motivated Conservative members, but the benches of the party had moved increasingly to the left (relative to its members) under Heseltine. Patten thus won the election and, in a show of good faith, appointed Lang as Chancellor and Howard as Home Secretary. Upcomers in the party like Stephen Milligan, John Maples and Oliver Letwin were also appointed to the Shadow Cabinet. A small bounce in the polls aside, the party would have to settle on the sidelines, for now.
Without being in government, the party’s infighting got more brutal, especially with regards to Europe and the common currency. Hurd’s ‘speak-no-evil’ strategy did little to unify the party. Euroskeptics kept sniping from the backbenches arguing that any future constitutional change, such as the introduction of a common currency, should first be put to a national referendum rather than left to Parliament. Michael Heseltine, would also shift his position, now out of power and government, becoming a forceful advocate for adopting the common currency.
So, when Hurd resigned, the party seemed to be ready for a slug-match. Representing the europhillic wing, with the endorsements of Heseltine, King, Heath and many other prominent One Nation Tories, was the former Foreign Secretary (who was never tarred by Black Tuesday) Chris Patten. His campaign represented a clean break from the cautious Hurd. On Europe, he argued that Britain’s place should be “at the heart of Europe” whilst on social issues, he said the party needed to accept both social liberalisation and open its doors to women and minorities, or else they would be consigned to the 20th century. Borrowing a phrase from Portillo’s successful campaign, he presented himself as a ‘New Conservative’ and ran accordingly, to make the party fit for the 21st century.
If Chris Patten represented the future, then Ann Widdecombe was the candidate of the past. Doubling down on euroskepticism, her campaign was supported by the right, who believed her to be the next Thatcher. Her cutting appraisals of her competitors and her social conservative bent gained her attention but proved to be merely hype. She gained only 10% of the vote in the first ballot, the clear loser, with the right instead backing Michael Howard, who had similar policies, but lacked the fire-breathing qualities which doomed Widdecombe.
The continuity candidate was Shadow Foreign Secretary Ian Lang. Like Hurd before him, Lang attempted to appeal to both wings of the party but struggled in his campaign after difficult questions were asked about his vote against Scottish devolution and his subsequent resignation from Heseltine’s shadow cabinet. Further, he was seen as a potential liability thanks to his miniscule majority, being only 200 votes ahead of the SNP candidate. Lang would be forced out in the second ballot, after Widdecombe’s supporters coalesced around Howard.
Howard’s right-wing campaign may have motivated Conservative members, but the benches of the party had moved increasingly to the left (relative to its members) under Heseltine. Patten thus won the election and, in a show of good faith, appointed Lang as Chancellor and Howard as Home Secretary. Upcomers in the party like Stephen Milligan, John Maples and Oliver Letwin were also appointed to the Shadow Cabinet. A small bounce in the polls aside, the party would have to settle on the sidelines, for now.
Last edited:
1995 German federal election
If the symbolic end of the Cold War in Europe came with the Berlin Wall's 1989 collapse, then its definitive end was with German reunification in 1991. In East Germany’s first free democratic election, the CDU/CSU (essentially a vehicle for unification) won in a landslide and West German Chancellor Lothar Späth, became a forceful advocate for unification. Whilst there was hesitance to unification from French President Chirac, cautious support of the project from Britain and the US, in effect, made it inevitable. Once united, with the first free German-wide election since pre-WWII, Späth won a historic absolute majority in the Bundestag, the second absolute majority since the war.
One of the most consequential decisions of Späth’s chancellorship (lauded by historians and East Germans alike) saw his government pursue currency parity with the former East, allowing for an easier transition to democracy and into unity. Domestically popular, this policy gained fierce critics in Europe and the EU. The high interest rates required to ensure this currency parity, caused many of the tensions within the E.E.R.M, including both Britain’s ‘Realignment Crisis’ and Italy’s dramatic crash-out 1995, which saw the end of the Ochetto government. These issues have been credited as part of the reason for the failure of the EU to adopt the common currency (as originally planned) in 1999.
By 1995, domestic concerns overshadowed Europe and European integration to German voters. As the unemployment rate surpassed the government’s statutory limit of 4 million, with greater unemployment in the East than the West, the lackluster response of the CDU/CSU made Späth deeply unpopular and seemed to predict defeat in the upcoming election. Alongside this, Späth seemed consumed by internal party tensions and whispers of coups from rivals. Whilst Kohl had been removed from domestic politics, Späth was fearful of a party coup led by either Kohl’s protégé Wolfgang Schäuble or CSU leader Edmund Stoiber. In response to this, Späth was seen to have centralized power, at the expense of rivals and the CSU. An unintended side-effect of this centralization was that Späth had (in essence) presidentialised the CDU/CSU in his image, which proved personally catastrophic for him in light of the economic recession Germany was suffering.
Meanwhile, the SPD had seemingly returned to electability. After a crushing defeat in 1991, the party united around Rudolf Scharping, the Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate. Whilst criticised for being boring and dull, his ability to balance the SPD (between the ‘New Ideas’ Gerhard Schröder and socialist Oskar Lafontaine) with his informal ‘troika’, saw the party constituted as a united force for 1995. With a campaign focused on the domestic issues, with little mention of Europe, the SPD resonated with voters.
The Citizens’ Alliance (Bürger Bündnis/BB) was the likely kingmakers according to pre-election polling. The Alliance was a collection of liberal, green, and democratic activists and parties from former East Germany, which unlike the Western Green Party, had survived the 1991 election. With no representation, the Citizen’s Alliance was able to leverage its charismatic members (such as Joachim Gauck, Matthias Platzeck and Marianne Birthler) and parliament representation to co-opt the Greens and in essence become the de-facto green political party, albeit being more prominent in the East than the West. Joachim Gauck, the first elected leader of the united party, clearly positioned themselves a green democratic alternative and made overtures to both SPD and CDU/CSU voters. Gauck also made clear that (against the fundamentals ‘fundis’ wishes) that the Green’s would be open to working with the SPD in government.
The FDP, excluded from Späth’s majority government, became consumed with internal strife, with its social liberal and economic liberal wings in competition with the other. Languishing in the polls, the FDP saw itself fall to fourth place, the worst result for the party since WWII. The PDS, the successor to the East Germany Communist party, also struggled in this new climate and failed to meet the electoral threshold for proportional seats in the Bundestag. Alongside this, the PDS saw Gregor Gysi, its leader accused of being Stasi agent, which raised controversy. Despite this, Gysi was re-elected to his Berlin seat alongside Petra Pau.
The campaign saw the SPD successfully translate widespread public resentment at Späth into support for the party, allowing them to enjoy a corresponding surge in their vote share to become the largest party (for the first time since 1972) in the Bundestag. Alongside this historic achievement for the SPD, voters elected a majority of its representatives from parties which were left-of-centre (counting the SPD, BB and PDS), for the first time in the Bundestag’s history. Accordingly, Scharping invited Gauck into coalition, which was quickly accepted, with Gauck being Foreign Minister. Scharping would make reducing unemployment the main objective of his new government.
One of the most consequential decisions of Späth’s chancellorship (lauded by historians and East Germans alike) saw his government pursue currency parity with the former East, allowing for an easier transition to democracy and into unity. Domestically popular, this policy gained fierce critics in Europe and the EU. The high interest rates required to ensure this currency parity, caused many of the tensions within the E.E.R.M, including both Britain’s ‘Realignment Crisis’ and Italy’s dramatic crash-out 1995, which saw the end of the Ochetto government. These issues have been credited as part of the reason for the failure of the EU to adopt the common currency (as originally planned) in 1999.
By 1995, domestic concerns overshadowed Europe and European integration to German voters. As the unemployment rate surpassed the government’s statutory limit of 4 million, with greater unemployment in the East than the West, the lackluster response of the CDU/CSU made Späth deeply unpopular and seemed to predict defeat in the upcoming election. Alongside this, Späth seemed consumed by internal party tensions and whispers of coups from rivals. Whilst Kohl had been removed from domestic politics, Späth was fearful of a party coup led by either Kohl’s protégé Wolfgang Schäuble or CSU leader Edmund Stoiber. In response to this, Späth was seen to have centralized power, at the expense of rivals and the CSU. An unintended side-effect of this centralization was that Späth had (in essence) presidentialised the CDU/CSU in his image, which proved personally catastrophic for him in light of the economic recession Germany was suffering.
Meanwhile, the SPD had seemingly returned to electability. After a crushing defeat in 1991, the party united around Rudolf Scharping, the Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate. Whilst criticised for being boring and dull, his ability to balance the SPD (between the ‘New Ideas’ Gerhard Schröder and socialist Oskar Lafontaine) with his informal ‘troika’, saw the party constituted as a united force for 1995. With a campaign focused on the domestic issues, with little mention of Europe, the SPD resonated with voters.
The Citizens’ Alliance (Bürger Bündnis/BB) was the likely kingmakers according to pre-election polling. The Alliance was a collection of liberal, green, and democratic activists and parties from former East Germany, which unlike the Western Green Party, had survived the 1991 election. With no representation, the Citizen’s Alliance was able to leverage its charismatic members (such as Joachim Gauck, Matthias Platzeck and Marianne Birthler) and parliament representation to co-opt the Greens and in essence become the de-facto green political party, albeit being more prominent in the East than the West. Joachim Gauck, the first elected leader of the united party, clearly positioned themselves a green democratic alternative and made overtures to both SPD and CDU/CSU voters. Gauck also made clear that (against the fundamentals ‘fundis’ wishes) that the Green’s would be open to working with the SPD in government.
The FDP, excluded from Späth’s majority government, became consumed with internal strife, with its social liberal and economic liberal wings in competition with the other. Languishing in the polls, the FDP saw itself fall to fourth place, the worst result for the party since WWII. The PDS, the successor to the East Germany Communist party, also struggled in this new climate and failed to meet the electoral threshold for proportional seats in the Bundestag. Alongside this, the PDS saw Gregor Gysi, its leader accused of being Stasi agent, which raised controversy. Despite this, Gysi was re-elected to his Berlin seat alongside Petra Pau.
The campaign saw the SPD successfully translate widespread public resentment at Späth into support for the party, allowing them to enjoy a corresponding surge in their vote share to become the largest party (for the first time since 1972) in the Bundestag. Alongside this historic achievement for the SPD, voters elected a majority of its representatives from parties which were left-of-centre (counting the SPD, BB and PDS), for the first time in the Bundestag’s history. Accordingly, Scharping invited Gauck into coalition, which was quickly accepted, with Gauck being Foreign Minister. Scharping would make reducing unemployment the main objective of his new government.
Last edited:
1995 Irish presidential election
A.N. This update is dedicated to @Time Enough who wanted Irish politics, but probably not like this.
Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics and public life, so much so, it would be accurate to describe Ireland as being under a de-facto political hegemony, with Fianna Fáil resembling political parties such as Japan’s LDP, Mexico’s PRI and (pre-‘mani pulite’) Italy’s CD’s. Further, with Irish politics being profoundly populist and localist in both its nature and culture, Fianna Fáil was able to maintain this hegemony by continually shift its politics, appealing to different groups whilst remaining ideologically and politically coherent. Fine Gael’s Garrett FitzGerald’s government which ran Ireland between 1982 and 1986 (which saw the liberal Fine Gael form a coalition with the democratic socialist Labour party) was largely fruitless, with an unpopular economic programme and minimal progress made towards the Irish peace process. Charles Haughey’s return to office, with an absolute majority, was a bitter disappointment for those opposed to Fianna Fáil but, ultimately, represented a return to the status quo.
The 1990 Irish Presidential election, however, represented the beginning of a change to this status quo, which had defined Irish politics since 1921. Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste and a Fianna Fáil grandee, was a flawed candidate, mired with accusations of misleading the public on national TV about whether he placed political pressure on President Hillery in 1982. Lenihan was also seen to have escalated the situation by insulting voters by saying that their concerns were akin to a “storm in a teacup”. Calls for his removal as Deputy Leader were ignored by Fianna Fáil, with Haughey not wanting to stir the controversy further which would overshadow the campaign. FitzGerald and Spring (the former leaders of their respective parties during the former PM’s coalition and both the Presidential nominees) largely campaigned on an anti-Lenihan message in response to this. This controversy saw, for the first time since 1945, Fianna Fáil’s candidate failing to win the first count outright, forcing a second count, and only then, managing to win 50.4% of the vote, the lowest margin for a victorious candidate for President recorded in Irish history. The close result was seen as a sign of concern for Haughey and Fianna Fáil who, whilst succeeded in electing Lenihan, observed a growing trend against the party.
The 1992 election reflected this trend, with Fianna Fáil, whilst still the dominant party, falling considerably short of a majority. Michael Noonan of Fine Gael was an effective leader who saw his party gain a considerable amount of seats. The left, meanwhile, continued to struggle with working-class voters divided between the Workers’ Party, Labour, Greens and Fine Gael. Without a charismatic leader in Spring, Labour seemed lost to decline, and in a shock, polled fourth in vote share, losing out to the Progressive Democrats.
Meanwhile, both before and after the election, Haughey faced serious allegations of corrupt practices after a number of allegations were raised by the Granada Television programme World in Action, relating to tax fraud, falsification of documents and weights of beef and government favouritism towards certain beef companies, particularly those of beef baron Larry Goodman.
Haughey thanks to this, went into the post-election negotiations weak, but luckily for him, Fine Gael’s position proved weaker. Noonan was unable to form an anti-Fianna Fáil coalition, thanks to the weak position of the Labour Party, shell-shocked by the result and so were in no condition to run government departments. An attempt by Fianna Fáil to enter coalition with Labour also failed, for the same reasons. Thus, Haughney was forced to enter a coalition with the Progressive Democrats. These negotiations were especially difficult for Haughney as not only had PD leader Desmond ‘Des’ O’Malley, left Fianna Fáil because of Haughey’s leadership and socially conservative policies he had instituted. It was also a PD demand that a political tribunal would be established (which had not been used to investigate corruption allegations prior) to investigate ‘Beefgate’. Whilst an agreement was eventually reached, these tensions only hastened Haughey’s retirement as PM.
In the resulting leadership election, the two titans of the Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern (representing the urban, modern wing) and Albert Reynolds (representing the so-called ‘country and western’, rural wing) fought for the leadership. Ahern successfully argued that if Fianna Fáil was to return to single-party government, then it needed a leader who could appeal and win back urban areas (Dublin), which had begun to reject the party in favour of Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats. This, with Haughhey’s backing, who had come to despise Reynolds for his attempts to undermine his leadership and hasten his retirement in the early 1990s, saw Ahern win by a large margin.
Ahern was far more comfortable in coalition than either Haughey was, or Reynolds would have been. He also represented a new and fresher face for Fianna Fáil and was more in tune with the changes Irish society was undergoing in the 1990s. Working with British PM Robin Cook, Ahern signed the much-delayed Anglo-Irish Agreement in August 1995, with hope the Agreement would reduce tensions on the island and offer a practical path to peace on the island. Alongside this, Irish society was moving towards a more liberal place as a result of the advent of the interweb and concurrent European-wide socio-cultural changes.
These changes would finally achieve political results in the 1995 presidential election, held after the death of the incumbent President Leinhan. Leinhan, a controversial figure since his victory in 1990, self-styled as the “People’s President” proved increasingly out-of-touch with the public, with his populist charm having worn off. His death of a heart attack in September led to a minor constitutional crisis, before it was decided that en election should be held in October, for a seven-year term. In-keeping with tradition, Fianna Fáil nominated Minister of Justice and party grandee Albert Reynolds to become President despite his own controversial nature and the questions raised by the Beef Inquiry about his behaviour. The campaign would become a proxy for the culture and identity issues which had been dividing Ireland since the divorce and abortion referendums. Reynolds was a social conservative from the rural west whilst his main opponent was Fine Gael’s Mary Banotti, a single mother of two (when such was frowned upon in Ireland) from Dublin and a feminist who co-founded Women’s Aid. With Labour’s Adi Roche’s presidential campaign being derailed after serious allegations of her bullying fellow charity workers, the race morphed into a two-way fight between Banotti and Reynolds. By the end of the campaign it became clear that that Reynolds needed a first round knock-out as most of Roche’s second-preference votes (alongside other candidates) would go to Banotti. This would prove correct when the votes were counted and so, with an unexpected and sizeable margin, Banotti had been elected President, becoming the first female, and the first Fine Gael one at that. It was as if a new dawn had broken for Ireland.
Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics and public life, so much so, it would be accurate to describe Ireland as being under a de-facto political hegemony, with Fianna Fáil resembling political parties such as Japan’s LDP, Mexico’s PRI and (pre-‘mani pulite’) Italy’s CD’s. Further, with Irish politics being profoundly populist and localist in both its nature and culture, Fianna Fáil was able to maintain this hegemony by continually shift its politics, appealing to different groups whilst remaining ideologically and politically coherent. Fine Gael’s Garrett FitzGerald’s government which ran Ireland between 1982 and 1986 (which saw the liberal Fine Gael form a coalition with the democratic socialist Labour party) was largely fruitless, with an unpopular economic programme and minimal progress made towards the Irish peace process. Charles Haughey’s return to office, with an absolute majority, was a bitter disappointment for those opposed to Fianna Fáil but, ultimately, represented a return to the status quo.
The 1990 Irish Presidential election, however, represented the beginning of a change to this status quo, which had defined Irish politics since 1921. Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste and a Fianna Fáil grandee, was a flawed candidate, mired with accusations of misleading the public on national TV about whether he placed political pressure on President Hillery in 1982. Lenihan was also seen to have escalated the situation by insulting voters by saying that their concerns were akin to a “storm in a teacup”. Calls for his removal as Deputy Leader were ignored by Fianna Fáil, with Haughey not wanting to stir the controversy further which would overshadow the campaign. FitzGerald and Spring (the former leaders of their respective parties during the former PM’s coalition and both the Presidential nominees) largely campaigned on an anti-Lenihan message in response to this. This controversy saw, for the first time since 1945, Fianna Fáil’s candidate failing to win the first count outright, forcing a second count, and only then, managing to win 50.4% of the vote, the lowest margin for a victorious candidate for President recorded in Irish history. The close result was seen as a sign of concern for Haughey and Fianna Fáil who, whilst succeeded in electing Lenihan, observed a growing trend against the party.
The 1992 election reflected this trend, with Fianna Fáil, whilst still the dominant party, falling considerably short of a majority. Michael Noonan of Fine Gael was an effective leader who saw his party gain a considerable amount of seats. The left, meanwhile, continued to struggle with working-class voters divided between the Workers’ Party, Labour, Greens and Fine Gael. Without a charismatic leader in Spring, Labour seemed lost to decline, and in a shock, polled fourth in vote share, losing out to the Progressive Democrats.
Meanwhile, both before and after the election, Haughey faced serious allegations of corrupt practices after a number of allegations were raised by the Granada Television programme World in Action, relating to tax fraud, falsification of documents and weights of beef and government favouritism towards certain beef companies, particularly those of beef baron Larry Goodman.
Haughey thanks to this, went into the post-election negotiations weak, but luckily for him, Fine Gael’s position proved weaker. Noonan was unable to form an anti-Fianna Fáil coalition, thanks to the weak position of the Labour Party, shell-shocked by the result and so were in no condition to run government departments. An attempt by Fianna Fáil to enter coalition with Labour also failed, for the same reasons. Thus, Haughney was forced to enter a coalition with the Progressive Democrats. These negotiations were especially difficult for Haughney as not only had PD leader Desmond ‘Des’ O’Malley, left Fianna Fáil because of Haughey’s leadership and socially conservative policies he had instituted. It was also a PD demand that a political tribunal would be established (which had not been used to investigate corruption allegations prior) to investigate ‘Beefgate’. Whilst an agreement was eventually reached, these tensions only hastened Haughey’s retirement as PM.
In the resulting leadership election, the two titans of the Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern (representing the urban, modern wing) and Albert Reynolds (representing the so-called ‘country and western’, rural wing) fought for the leadership. Ahern successfully argued that if Fianna Fáil was to return to single-party government, then it needed a leader who could appeal and win back urban areas (Dublin), which had begun to reject the party in favour of Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats. This, with Haughhey’s backing, who had come to despise Reynolds for his attempts to undermine his leadership and hasten his retirement in the early 1990s, saw Ahern win by a large margin.
Ahern was far more comfortable in coalition than either Haughey was, or Reynolds would have been. He also represented a new and fresher face for Fianna Fáil and was more in tune with the changes Irish society was undergoing in the 1990s. Working with British PM Robin Cook, Ahern signed the much-delayed Anglo-Irish Agreement in August 1995, with hope the Agreement would reduce tensions on the island and offer a practical path to peace on the island. Alongside this, Irish society was moving towards a more liberal place as a result of the advent of the interweb and concurrent European-wide socio-cultural changes.
These changes would finally achieve political results in the 1995 presidential election, held after the death of the incumbent President Leinhan. Leinhan, a controversial figure since his victory in 1990, self-styled as the “People’s President” proved increasingly out-of-touch with the public, with his populist charm having worn off. His death of a heart attack in September led to a minor constitutional crisis, before it was decided that en election should be held in October, for a seven-year term. In-keeping with tradition, Fianna Fáil nominated Minister of Justice and party grandee Albert Reynolds to become President despite his own controversial nature and the questions raised by the Beef Inquiry about his behaviour. The campaign would become a proxy for the culture and identity issues which had been dividing Ireland since the divorce and abortion referendums. Reynolds was a social conservative from the rural west whilst his main opponent was Fine Gael’s Mary Banotti, a single mother of two (when such was frowned upon in Ireland) from Dublin and a feminist who co-founded Women’s Aid. With Labour’s Adi Roche’s presidential campaign being derailed after serious allegations of her bullying fellow charity workers, the race morphed into a two-way fight between Banotti and Reynolds. By the end of the campaign it became clear that that Reynolds needed a first round knock-out as most of Roche’s second-preference votes (alongside other candidates) would go to Banotti. This would prove correct when the votes were counted and so, with an unexpected and sizeable margin, Banotti had been elected President, becoming the first female, and the first Fine Gael one at that. It was as if a new dawn had broken for Ireland.
Last edited:
Damn Irish politics seem like even more of a wild clusterfuck beneath the placid scene than OTL!
I do really like the sense you’re giving of a more wild Nineties than what we saw IOTL. Keep up the great work.
Not sure if I just missed it but how did the 1994 US midterms go?
I do really like the sense you’re giving of a more wild Nineties than what we saw IOTL. Keep up the great work.
Not sure if I just missed it but how did the 1994 US midterms go?
How'd you make the Canada popular vote map like the one on Wikipedia?Jean Chrétien, like his fellow prime ministers who ruled Canada between the 1980s and 1990s, suffered from an increasingly indebted federal government and socio-cultural clashes between French-speaking Quebec and the English-speaking West, which suffered from ‘Western alienation’. Even Chrétien’s accent couldn’t escape this debate. French speakers would attack Chrétien for mangling the French language through (often clumsy) Anglicisation whilst English-speaking comedians would, paradoxically, make fun of his thick French accent.
Chrétien’s politics, now endorsed with an elected term of its own, could be boiled down to fervent federalism and small-town populism. Such a governing style explains the lack of progress made with both constitutional reform and the ‘wait-and-see’ approach on whether to enter negotiations for a free trade deal with the US. This approach was further exacerbated by Chrétien’s closest political advisors, Michel Fournier, his chief of staff and Eddie Goldenberg, his principal secretary. Having ill-conceived mandates meant the men would often clash, which led to paralysis both in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and in long-term government strategy.
This belt-buckling and pragmatic government was a far cry from the campaign which won Chrétien the party leadership in 1984. It also did little to calm tensions within his party. John Turner became a thorn in Chrétien's side, having been elected as an MP in 1984. Pierre Trudeau also remained in the public eye, continually using his bully pulpit to offer unpopular advice to his immediate successor and protégé.
Chrétien’s lack of a majority also meant that he would have to work closely with the NDP, who believed themselves to be only an election or two away from government. So, for political reasons, the NDP would stymie Chrétien's attempts to institute a national childcare program. Chrétien, a tried-and-tested political streetfighter and supremely self-confident, was minded to call a snap election and did, for September 1987, rather than see his government fall to a motion of no confidence.
Joe Clark’s unceremonious resignation saw the (Progressive) Conservatives enter a period of reflection which saw Newfoundland and Labrador premier John Crosbie win the leadership against Michael Wilson. A populist, Crosbie assembled a coalition of social liberals on the Eastern seaboard, fiscal conservatives in Ontario and conservatives in the East. His folksy and populist charm however had little impact in Quebec, who regarded the English-speaking Crosbie as unsympathetic to their demands for either sovereignty or independence.
Whilst the election always seemed to favour the PCs, which ran heavily on themes of change and renewal, it was in the English-speaking debate (the French debate saw Jean Charest, who was one of only 4 PC’s elected in Quebec in 1984, stand in for Crosbie), which saw the PC victory confirmed. Crosbie promised that a PC government would not be afraid to tackle the big issues of the day such as free trade and would “be ambitious, be bolder and be better”. By finding and tapping into the root of public discontent with the Liberals, Crosbie won the election.
In a landslide, voters rewarded Crosbie with the first secure Conservative majority government since 1962. Liberals lost once-safe seats in both Ontario and along the Atlantic Seaboard, to the Conservatives. Even in Quebec, the Conservatives overperformed mostly thanks to the forceful campaigning of Charest and because of splits in the left-wing vote between the Liberals and NDP (with the NDP beginning to enjoy the support of sovereigntists and socialists in Quebec).
Crosbie, now PM and a noted advocate of free trade, almost immediately began negotiations towards an North American Free Trade Zone (NAFTZ).
Yeah that update is one of my favourite parts of the TL for me, both because it was interesting to research it and because it seems so alien when compared to British and European politics.
I'm putting the finishing touches on the next update, which completely follows the wild Nineties theme I've got going.
Ah yeah, I was gonna cover that a bit more with the US 1996 election but honestly its pretty unremarkable. Republicans keep hold of the House (they lose a few seats) and keep hold of the Senate (they actually increase their seats due to retiring Southern Democrats).
Bob Michel retires as Speaker and Dick Armey replaces him, with Hastert (unfortunately) becoming House Majority Leader.
I downloaded the image via Inkscape and used it to edit the seat totals and names. The province colours are easily able to be edited as they are already crafted and designed but I found the bars a bit harder to work with, so I just created my own using the tools on Inkscape. In essence, for them I traced over the bars and graphs with my own stuff, so it would form an outline and then just add the bars and seat totals/party names after.
I hope that makes sense?
Last edited:
Ah nice! Looking forward to more! This TL is inspiring me to get off my ass and get more written of my Bicentennial Man TL haha
Nice stuff, shame about Dick but oh well. Amusingly I did use Mary Banotti once in a list as a Fine Gael President because she feels like she would present a sea change/Social Liberal image in comparison to the various other candidates.
Also the Workers Party staying together is one of those things that could have actually occurred in 92’ (the vote to disaffiliate the OIRA from the party was close enough that it could have gone to De Rossa) though the years after would probably be rocky due to the copious amounts of allegations about the OIRA and there connections to North Korea and the Soviet Union.
I could see an attempt to rename and reorganise the party in the Mid 90s as it’s message of EuroCommunism looks even more staid and awkward and it has to start competing with Sinn Fèin and Labour in a bigger manner.
Well, Prince Andrew copped it, so every cloud has a silver lining.
Not sure about Charles Dance and Christopher Lee in a Star Wars movie though, the sheer amount of raw undiluted awesome would probably make most cinema goers' heads explode.
Not sure about Charles Dance and Christopher Lee in a Star Wars movie though, the sheer amount of raw undiluted awesome would probably make most cinema goers' heads explode.
Last edited:
I’ve been having a look at your TL and it looks really good!
I’m a sucker for both Ford ‘76 (more because it means a Democrat wins in ‘80 than because I like Ford, even if Betty is OP) and a Callaghan ‘78 victory followed by Healey premiership.
Thanks!
Mary Banotti as an Robinson-analogue was too good to pass up and it complemented the “Fine Gael doing better than OTL” trend I tried to show with Ireland.
Of course them doing better means Labour do worse…
I did see that in your test thread after I already made the damn update and realised that damn, so much for it being original. Great minds think alike I guess?
I’m sure I’ve got another Ireland update in me, so it might be a getting a bit better for Labour next time.
I can’t promise that I’m afraid. My knowledge of Turkish politics is very limited and it would take a lot to try and figure something out for it.
As much I don’t like saying it’s good that someone’s died no matter who and what they did, Andrew is that silver living you talk about.
The star power of the film would’ve definitely caused a fair amount of attention…
I’m surprised there’s not as much love for Gillian Anderson as Mara Jade actually. She’s probably my personal favourite fan cast for the film, just about beating Dance for my favourite cast.
Last edited:
Glad you’re enjoying!I’ve been having a look at your TL and it looks really good!
I’m a sucker for both Ford ‘76 (more because it means a Democrat wins in ‘80 than because I like Ford, even if Betty is OP) and a Callaghan ‘78 victory followed by Healey premiership.
Thanks!
Mary Banotti as an Robinson-analogue was too good to pass up and it complemented the “Fine Gael doing better than OTL” trend I tried to show with Ireland.
Of course them doing better means Labour do worse…
I did see that in your test thread after I already made the damn update and realised that damn, so much for it being original. Great minds think alike I guess?
I’m sure I’ve got another Ireland update in me, so it might be a getting a bit better for Labour next time.
I can’t promise that I’m afraid. My knowledge of Turkish politics is very limited and it would take a lot to try and figure something out for it.
As much I don’t like saying it’s good that someone’s died no matter who and what they did, Andrew is that silver living you talk about.
The star power of the film would’ve definitely caused a fair amount of attention…
I’m surprised there’s not as much love for Gillian Anderson as Mara Jade actually. She’s probably my personal favourite fan cast for the film, just about beating Dance for my favourite cast.
I could help you with it. But, first, I need to think what could I change in Turkish politics. After all, 1990s were era of neoliberal policies all around major parties of Turkey.
United States Intervention into Rwanda
The Rwandan Conflict has become synonymous with the ‘New War’ (the term coined by British academic Mary Kaldor), the next stage of global politics which would follow the end of the Cold War. Rwanda, originally a one-party dictatorship under President (and Hutu) Juvénal Habyarimana from 1975-1990, saw with the end of the Cold War, international as well as internal pressure for political reform. Due to this, in July 1990, Habyarimana would institute democratic reforms in order to transition Rwanda from a one-party state into a multi-party democracy.
However, this would not be an inclusive democracy. Habyarimana stated that Rwanda had “no room” for 500,000 mostly Tutsi refugees living in exile, which led to them forming the Rwandan People’s Front (RPF). The RPF, led by Paul Kagame, initiated a civil war from their Ugandan base, in an attempt to remove Habyarimana from power. The Rwandan Civil War would last for two bloody years, before concluding in the Arusha Accords, which would agree a form of power-sharing, alongside allowing for both the Organization for African Unity and the United Nations, specifically, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), to establish footholds in the nation to maintain the peace. However, these tentative steps towards a settlement would be derailed with the assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
Habyarimana’s plane would be shot down when landing in Kigali , leading to a political crisis and power vacuum. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, constitutionally Rwanda's new head of state and of government, attempted to consolidate power with the UNAMIR sending 10 Belgium bodyguards to protect her. Opposite her was the military, dominated by Hutu-supremacists, who sought to remove her from office and initiate a genocide against both the Tutsis and those supportive of them. Uwilingiyimana was attacked in her house, which was sieged the Rwanda military. Her bodyguards, by fighting back, allowed the PM and her family to escape out of the compound. Hearing further reports of the U.N. volunteer compound being attacked in the search for the PM on Radio Rwanda, saw Uwilingiyimana seeking refuge in Hôtel des Mille Collines, which was housing multiple other refugees and foreign nations at the time. The UN’s evacuation of foreign nationals two days later, also saw the PM evacuated with her family, rightly fearing her safety if left in Rwanda. When the UN evacuation was discovered, the military encouraged a brutal campaign against UNAMIR personnel left in the nation, leading to further international condemnation.
With the PM having escaped, control of the nation fell to an extremist, far-right and Hutu-dominated military junta called the ‘Crisis Committee’ which began to direct the army, militias, and ordinary citizens to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The violence began in Kigali, but soon spread nationwide. Meanwhile, the RPF-controlled areas saw a flood of refugees but would do little to help those being killed in government areas, seeing winning the civil war as being the more important objective.
It would be a meeting between Thompson and Cheney on April 12 that saw the US commit to intervening in Rwanda, in part after a plea from Uwilingiyimana, now in exile in Tanzania. Beginning with air strikes (and the unilateral declaration of a no-fly zone above Rwanda) on the committee’s airfields, military bases, and troop movements, the US flexed its military might. This strategy originally seemed to pay dividends in stopping the genocide, but military experts soon concluded that due to the scale and nature of the conflict, it would be difficult to end the genocide without active troops of the ground. It would take a month for US to establish a foothold in the nation, following the Battle of Kigali. During this month, over 200,000 civilians would be killed.
After the Battle of Kigali, the US soon found themselves occupying a hostile, ethnographically diverse and foreign nation, in the middle of a three-way war, between the Crisis Committee, RPF and the constitutional government-in-exile led by Uwilingiyimana. Despite this, casualties were low on the US side, thanks to Wesley Clark’s leadership and effective ‘decapitation’ policies against the Crisis Committee and militias, which saw the arrest or killing of leaders and key organisers by US special forces. However, US troops would be unable to stop mass murder outside of the urban areas of Rwanda, forcing a recalibration of military strategy. Allying with the RPF, the US gave weapons and aid to the RPF, to better stop the continuing violence. Most of the fighting in the rural areas would thus be done by the RPF, which defeated both the national army and the Hutu militias, with US support. By August 1994, the genocide was deemed to be officially over by the United Nations.
This allowed the US and the UN (led by Roméo Dallaire, who had gained a prominent profile in both the US and Canada, thanks to his role as a UNAMIR commander) to negotiate a ceasefire of the civil war in December 1994, which would see US troops remain for a year, supporting the interim government, before being withdrawn. A government of national unity was created which was RPF-led but included members of eight political parties, with the creation of a dual Premiership, with a First PM and Deputy PM taken by RPF’s Paul Kagame and former PM Uwilingiyimana. It was a cautious peace, but a stable one.
However, this would not be an inclusive democracy. Habyarimana stated that Rwanda had “no room” for 500,000 mostly Tutsi refugees living in exile, which led to them forming the Rwandan People’s Front (RPF). The RPF, led by Paul Kagame, initiated a civil war from their Ugandan base, in an attempt to remove Habyarimana from power. The Rwandan Civil War would last for two bloody years, before concluding in the Arusha Accords, which would agree a form of power-sharing, alongside allowing for both the Organization for African Unity and the United Nations, specifically, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), to establish footholds in the nation to maintain the peace. However, these tentative steps towards a settlement would be derailed with the assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
Habyarimana’s plane would be shot down when landing in Kigali , leading to a political crisis and power vacuum. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, constitutionally Rwanda's new head of state and of government, attempted to consolidate power with the UNAMIR sending 10 Belgium bodyguards to protect her. Opposite her was the military, dominated by Hutu-supremacists, who sought to remove her from office and initiate a genocide against both the Tutsis and those supportive of them. Uwilingiyimana was attacked in her house, which was sieged the Rwanda military. Her bodyguards, by fighting back, allowed the PM and her family to escape out of the compound. Hearing further reports of the U.N. volunteer compound being attacked in the search for the PM on Radio Rwanda, saw Uwilingiyimana seeking refuge in Hôtel des Mille Collines, which was housing multiple other refugees and foreign nations at the time. The UN’s evacuation of foreign nationals two days later, also saw the PM evacuated with her family, rightly fearing her safety if left in Rwanda. When the UN evacuation was discovered, the military encouraged a brutal campaign against UNAMIR personnel left in the nation, leading to further international condemnation.
With the PM having escaped, control of the nation fell to an extremist, far-right and Hutu-dominated military junta called the ‘Crisis Committee’ which began to direct the army, militias, and ordinary citizens to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The violence began in Kigali, but soon spread nationwide. Meanwhile, the RPF-controlled areas saw a flood of refugees but would do little to help those being killed in government areas, seeing winning the civil war as being the more important objective.
It would be a meeting between Thompson and Cheney on April 12 that saw the US commit to intervening in Rwanda, in part after a plea from Uwilingiyimana, now in exile in Tanzania. Beginning with air strikes (and the unilateral declaration of a no-fly zone above Rwanda) on the committee’s airfields, military bases, and troop movements, the US flexed its military might. This strategy originally seemed to pay dividends in stopping the genocide, but military experts soon concluded that due to the scale and nature of the conflict, it would be difficult to end the genocide without active troops of the ground. It would take a month for US to establish a foothold in the nation, following the Battle of Kigali. During this month, over 200,000 civilians would be killed.
After the Battle of Kigali, the US soon found themselves occupying a hostile, ethnographically diverse and foreign nation, in the middle of a three-way war, between the Crisis Committee, RPF and the constitutional government-in-exile led by Uwilingiyimana. Despite this, casualties were low on the US side, thanks to Wesley Clark’s leadership and effective ‘decapitation’ policies against the Crisis Committee and militias, which saw the arrest or killing of leaders and key organisers by US special forces. However, US troops would be unable to stop mass murder outside of the urban areas of Rwanda, forcing a recalibration of military strategy. Allying with the RPF, the US gave weapons and aid to the RPF, to better stop the continuing violence. Most of the fighting in the rural areas would thus be done by the RPF, which defeated both the national army and the Hutu militias, with US support. By August 1994, the genocide was deemed to be officially over by the United Nations.
This allowed the US and the UN (led by Roméo Dallaire, who had gained a prominent profile in both the US and Canada, thanks to his role as a UNAMIR commander) to negotiate a ceasefire of the civil war in December 1994, which would see US troops remain for a year, supporting the interim government, before being withdrawn. A government of national unity was created which was RPF-led but included members of eight political parties, with the creation of a dual Premiership, with a First PM and Deputy PM taken by RPF’s Paul Kagame and former PM Uwilingiyimana. It was a cautious peace, but a stable one.
Last edited:
I hope that's the end of the bloodshed in Rwanda.
I love happy ittl resolutions
I love happy ittl resolutions