User:Rtcity/vyfarla crisis
| Vyfarlan crisis | |
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 The South Vyfarlan "blood flag," used by the early South Vyfarla Movement
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| Location | Vyfarla Province (then Vyfarla and South Vyfarla) |
| Date | 11 February–7 April, 1900 |
| Causes | Incorporation of Vyfarla into the Kryfona Kingdom as a single province
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| Type | Political conflict |
| Goals | Prevention of Vyfarla from ascending into the Kryfona Kingdom |
| Methods | Civil disobedience, political protest, riots |
| Figures | Barazset Nazsme, Dagri Vozsu, Sarasezix Wazsyel, Tazsran Malde |
| Results | Vyfarla ultimately joins Kryfona Kingdom
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The Vyfarlan crisis was a political crisis surrounding the incorporation of Vyfarla Province that began on 11 February, 1900, when talks to incorporate Vyfarla ended, and voting on the matter was set to begin. At the time, the area which was proposed to make up Vyfarla Province was split between the unincorporated territories of North Vyfarla and South Vyfarla. While the Northern Vyfarlans were not adverse to incorporating Vyfarla into the Kryfona Kingdom, the Southern Vyfarlans detested the idea of a singular Vyfarla being incorporated, particularly because of the different needs of the two Vyfarlas. Subsequently, when the bill was slated to come to a vote, the South Vyfarlans began a campaign against the ascent of Vyfarla, prompting a political crisis which would continue for almost two months.
By the time the debate on whether to not to incorporate Vyfarla began, the two Vyfarlas had been extant as separated territories for a century and a half and their cultures had almost completely diverged. North Vyfarla, the larger of the two Vyfarlas, had become a massive, agriculturally based territory whose specialty was in exporting food to other parts of the Kingdom; South Vyfarla conversely was smaller, but specialized in manufacturing and industry, which had come to dominate the city of Eiwena. As a consequence of this, the two Vyfarlas had greatly differing interests, and although the North Vyfarlans believed that a unified Vyfarla would work in the interests of both the north and the south, South Vyfarla was much less interested in such a deal, and fought for the two to ascend into the Kingdom separately. Thus when the matter came up for a vote in early 1900, both sides sought to influence how the vote would go, and in the process divided the Kryfonsparliszaiye into two major factions on the matter: the incorporationists, and the reservationists. Incorporationists, who generally were members of the Kryfona Loyalist Party, favored North Vyfarla on the matter, while reservationists were generally Royalists, who favored South Vyfarla.
Despite the efforts of incorporationist voters in the Kryfonsparliszaiye, the first vote on ascension, taken on 14 February, 1900, failed by a margin of 42 to 39. Large scale discontent in North Vyfarla ensued. A second vote, which was forced through on 28 February also failed by a vote of 41 to 40, which caused riots to occur in North Vyfarla. Boycotts of South Vyfarlan goods in the north began in earnest, and widespread violence ensued in what became known as the Month of Rage. South Vyfarla was severely impacted by the boycott of the North despite being an up-and-coming industrial power, and saw massive decreases in both government and company revenue within the territory–nonetheless, South Vyfarlans held firm and continued to oppose the bill. A third, decisive vote on the bill was held on 7 April, after over a month of political bickering and deal making behind closed doors in the Kryfonsparliszaiye. The vote was again narrow, but on this occasion it passed by a margin of 42 to 39, with three of the decisive votes coming from Yaraan MPs. As part of a 'compromise', South Vyfarla's capital of Eiwena was recognized as the official capital of unified Vyfarla. Nonetheless, South Vyfarlans were outraged by the decision, and massive rioting broke out in virtually every southern city when word reached the area of the vote. Seventeen government buildings were firebombed or attacked in the South Vyfarla riots, and four government officials were killed in the process. So severe was the rioting that it necessitated intervention by president Yhurtienaid Qailenid. The Kryfona military was deployed to keep the peace in the province, and remained there for six months–only the outbreak of the Kryfona Civil War in September of 1900 prevented them from staying longer.
The Vyfarlan crisis was the first, and to date, only major crisis surrounding the admission of a province. While other provinces in the Kingdom, namely Seuyastazal, were incorporated with controversy, Vyfarla is to this day the only province whose ascent into the Kryfona Kingdom was delayed because of political troubles. In direct response to the decision to incorporate Vyfarla in one piece, South Vyfarlans formed the South Vyfarlan Movement, which remains active to this day and among other things, still demands the separation of the two Vyfarlas.
Background and first vote
Debate in the Kryfonsparliszaiye
In the Kryfonsparliszaiye, the debate surrounding the incorporation of Vyfarla had already been going for almost three years by the time any formal piece of legislation was introduced to actually do such a thing. Although the idea of Vyfarlan incorporation had been broached in the legislative body as early as the year 1876, it was not seriously entertained until 1897, when on the back of Yeqsrin Worissilo and a number of Loyalist MPs, it gained some traction. It is not clear whether or not it was a Loyalist idea, or Worissilo's, but given the circumstances and the background, Worissilo was likely the first of the two to entertain the idea. Worissilo was an Easterner himself, having been born and raised in the Kryfona Tuszke, and he already had experience with incorporation, having brought his home territory into the Kingdom as the Province of Reriskzeiy in 1883–with some controversy, it must be said. Worissilo was also well aware that the Vyfarla territories were more than capable of meeting the provincial requirements, and in January of 1898, spoke to Nylzsryfa that "...if you want my personal opinion, the two Vyfarla territories should have been incorporated long ago."
Worissilo found support of his view in the Loyalist camp, particularly among the MPs of Reriskzeiy, all of whom were Loyalists. The Loyalist interest in Vyfarla's ascension was largely political in nature. Although the two had different racial populations, Vyfarla had a similar demographic composition to Reriskzeiy at the time, and it was figured–largely by the eastern Loyalist MPs–that if Vyfarla were to ascend, it would be Loyalist voting because of that. In 1897, this fact was apparently either unknown, or uninteresting to the national party, who cared little for the idea of Vyfarlan ascension; however, the provincial parties, particularly the Loyalist chapter in Reriskzeiy, began to stump for Vyfarlan ascension as early as late-1897. When Yeqsrin Worissilo made it publicly clear that he was in support of Vyfarlan ascension in his Nylzsryfa interview, the Loyalist Party chapter in Reriskzeiy began to collaborate with him on the matter; this was where the bill that eventually became the Vyfarla Ascension Act probably got its start.
I think it is clear that the Vyfarla territories have met the unspoken conditions for incorporation for a significant period of time–action does, however, strictly fall to the Kryfonsparliszaiye on that front. Of course, if you want my personal opinion, the two Vyfarla territories should have been incorporated long ago.
The debate on whether or not to bring Vyfarla into the Kingdom began in earnest not long after this collaboration began, most likely because the national Loyalist and Royalist parties began to pay attention after Worissilo stated his opinions on the subject. While it was not yet a partisan issue, to start, most MPs in the Kryfonsparliszaiye were opinionated on the idea of bringing more territories into the fold. To many of the Loyalists, the prospect of bringing another province into the Kingdom was not palatable, particularly if Worissilo was going to be the main driving force behind it. While Loyalists were generically for such a thing, the involvement of the King was considered to be an overreach by many of the MPs outside of the East. Party leader Toszkim Lamar spoke a similar gospel in 1898 when interviewed by Uszyaaza on the matter: "It is preferable" he spoke, "that all Kryfona have their say in this nation. But it should be up to them to decide whether or not they are a part of this nation, not up to the King. We should not force them, and neither should he." On the other side of the aisle, the Royalists were generally of the opinion that it was a matter of the King, and not one of the Kryfonsparliszaiye. When asked of the matter himself, Royalist leader Ulizs Ganzyszmi said that "The King, in truth, has a final say on this. If he wishes to incorporate them, who are we to deny him?"
Both of these viewpoints were challenged, however, when the politics of the matter began to intertwine themselves with the considerations. After several months spent on other issues in the Kingdom, the Loyalist MPs of Reriskzeiy finally began to draft what would become the Vyfarla Ascension Act of 1900 in the summer of 1899; the national party was summarily notified, and made aware of the fact that the idea had been if nothing else collaborated on with Worissilo. This prompted a degree of outrage from the national party and a number of the party's MPs (although not necessarily from Toszkim Lamar), because it was not usual for the King to be partisan in the way he had, and in any case the ascension was not seen as something the Loyalists wanted–at least in theory. When it became clear, however, that the potential province would likely vote Loyalist, many of the dissenting voices from the national party began to change their tune. It would be hypocritical, certainly, to allow the bill to go forward with how close Worissilo had been to the considerations, considering how the party had responded to his involvement with the Kryfona Tuszke's ascension; however, ultimately many of the party members decided that the value of the votes was well worth appearing hypocritical if it meant plenty of new Loyalist voters. The bill ultimately went unchallenged by the national party, and soon thereafter, support for it was espoused.
A similar reversal of ideology took place with the Royalists on the subject–most of them, anyways. Even before it was clear that there was not a tangible benefit to the party allowing the ascension to go forward, many Royalist MPs and a large proportion of the party leadership was skeptical–for other reasons–about letting Vyfarla ascend in one piece. The south and the north had wholly different cultures, it was noted, and to combine these two into one would mean that one of them would have to be suppressed in favor of the other. It was likely then that the culture which would be suppressed would be the southern one, for the population of South Vyfarla was considerably less than North Vyfarla, which was problematic to the Royalists. Although they were not in the business of workers' protections and the rights of industrial workers, the industry and industrial culture of South Vyfarla was something that they desired, especially given the rural nature of the surrounding territories and provinces. To add another industrial province to the Kingdom would be positive, they figured; adding the Vyfarlas as one would run counter to this. Coupled with the later knowledge of the Loyalist preferences of the territory's population, and the likelihood that they would be unable to win elections there at any level–when the party became aware of this is unclear–the Royalists quickly came to the conclusion that, even though the King desired to make Vyfarla a province, they could not conceivably benefit from this being the case, and stood to oppose it.
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| Vyfarla Ascension Act of 1900 | |
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| Long title | An Act to Incorporate and Ascend the Territories of Vyfarla |
| Acronyms | VAA |
| Enacted by | 29th Kryfonsparliszaiye, on 7 April, 1900 |
| Effective | 7 April, 1900 |
| Voting history | |
| First vote | Failed 42–39 (2/14/00) |
| Second vote | Failed 41–40 (2/28/00) |
| Third vote | Passed 42–39 (4/7/00) |
| Legislative history | |
Proposed on 10 February, 1900
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Introduction of the Vyfarla Ascension Act
After over six months of deliberation and several meetings with King Yeqsrin Worissilo (who was, unbeknownst to the drafters, soon to be dead), a private draft of the Vyfarla Ascension Act of 1900 was produced; it was 27 January, 1900 by then. Work on the bill was, although not constant, agonizing for both Worissilo and the Eastern Loyalists, and it was said after the fact that the private draft was the product of hundreds of hours of writing and rewriting, which showed in the bill. Despite its simple idea, the final product of those hundreds of hours was complicated, tangled, and spanned nearly twenty pages, owing to the fact that it was intended to appease both the North Vyfarlans and the South Vyfarlans. The national Loyalist Party was well aware of the differences in the two Vyfarlas, and knew that the bill would be to some degree controversial–the appeasement clauses, such as the one which stated that the capital of the unified Vyfarla was to be South Vyfarla's capital, Eiwena, were there to try and soften the blow. Nonetheless, there remained a great deal of trepidation in the national party about introducing a bill that would unify Vyfarla.
The Eastern Loyalist MPs were not nearly as concerned about backlash as the national party was, although they were certainly aware that there would be significant opposition, most likely from Royalists and the industrial heart of South Vyfarla. They were not necessarily confident themselves that the bill would actually pass–at least not on the first try–but were optimistic nonetheless about the odds of their work becoming law. The party scheduled the introduction of the bill for 11 February, 1900, but this was moved back one day in light of the 11th being a Sunday. On 10 February, 1900, MPs Sazse Miko, Tanazsak Malga, Vistila Vieme, and Anjak Beteres Abele proposed KP-26-1-00 "Vyfarla Ascension Act of 1900" to the Kryfonsparliszaiye. With much of the negotiation and rewriting out of the way, the bill cleared drafting in only two days, and was officially proposed to be voted on just two days later, on 12 February, 1900. Only four days after its introduction, on 14 February, 1900, the Kryfonsparliszaiye was scheduled to vote on the bill.
Reaction in Vyfarla
The scheduling of a bill to determine the status of Vyfarla took many Vyfarlans off guard–the bill was sudden and not anticipated, although there had been rumblings in the province as early as December of 1899 that there would soon be a law of a similar nature coming to a vote in the Kryfonsparliszaiye. However, the surprise did not change the reactions, which for the most part were as expected. North Vyfarlans were pleased by the bill and its introduction, with the mayor of Jiviheda, Tazsam Algens, expressing his support of the decision; similar statements came from the mayors of Kavadaz, Vahays, and Kanzes. The Vyfarla territorial corps, while officially neutral, expressed that they would support the outcome of the bill, and stand for Vyfarlan unity either way. Several major Vyfarlan ranking officials, including future King Xeriren Awaseq (a South Vyfarlan), pledged their support to the outcome as well. There were reports of celebrations in the streets of Jiviheda by North Vyfarlans, as well as in Kavadaz and a number of other, smaller cities in the territory. A crowd of 1,000 assembled at the Jiviheda Central Square, and fireworks were set off.
In contrast, South Vyfarlans were much more muted in public on the subject. While there were protests in the streets of Eiwena and Vizy-sa-Eiwen on 12, 13, and 14 February, many South Vyfarlans either ignored the news or remained off the record. In private, however, there was a great deal of anger and an equally great deal of lobbying by South Vyfarlans to kill the bill, or vote it down in the Kryfonsparliszaiye when it came to vote. One of the loudest voices in private was Nylzsryf-raised but South Vyfarlan-born paper mogul Aune Vazsye. Vazsye was the owner of several Vyfarlan papers such as Eiwena, and the owner of an equal number of Lawvsgara-based papers, such as the Lawvsgara Times, and used his influence with both to try and sway votes. It is unclear how successful the efforts of South Vyfarlans such as Vazsye were; however, Vazsye himself personally credited his own actions as swaying "at least three of the voters."
The first vote
Although both parties were generally well aware of how their MPs would vote, it was not a matter of certainty how the other side would vote going into the 14 February vote on the bill, and as such there was a great deal of anxiety for both parties that day. Speaking of the vote three years later, Toszkim Lamar called it "among the most apprehensive" of his career; KRP leader Ulizs Ganzyszmi in a 1927 interview concurred, saying that "there was no certainty either way of how the vote would go. We–everybody there–was flying blind that day." Although Ganzyszmi was exaggerating slightly with his remark, it was true that for the most part, both party leaders were fundamentally unsure that they had the votes to carry the bill–or kill it.
The first vote began relatively well for both parties, with the first eleven party members for each side voting as expected–eleven yeas for the Loyalists, eleven nays for the Royalists. From there, however, the vote began to unravel for the Loyalists. Ezyok Garamezak, an MP from Peiretsaja, was the first Loyalist to cast a nay vote for the bill. He was followed by Ate Jazsem, who was from a solid Loyalist constituency but who in principle remained opposed to ascension on the grounds of the King being involved. The nay vote of Rizy Kyzezs a second Peiretsaja MP, effectively killed the bill's chances of passing by making it nineteen yeas to twenty nays, with more Royalists than Loyalists to go. At that point, the bill would have required several yeas from the Royalists to pass–every Royalist ultimately voted nay. A final dissenting vote on the Loyalist side was cast by Nazrye Kelem Svariyantina, who like Jazsem still disagreed with the principle of Royal intervention in ascension. Despite a Loyalist majority in the Kryfonsparliszaiye, the first vote on the Vyfarlan Ascension Act failed 42 to 39, with four Loyalist dissents and zero Royalist dissents.
Crisis and second vote
The failure of the first vote took many off guard, particularly those in North Vyfarla who had anticipated that the bill was essentially a done deal due to the Loyalist majority in the Kryfonsparliszaiye. When the news reached North Vyfarlans roughly twenty minutes after the vote, there was a great deal of disbelief; some of the North Vyfarlan newspapers were in fact so taken aback by the report of the bill's failure that they believed it was an error, and the bill had in fact passed 42-39 instead of failing. Subsequent reports on the vote however confirmed that the bill had failed, with four loyalists deciding the vote. In the South, news of the bill's failure was even more unbelievable, and was originally not taken seriously. When it became clear however that the reports were correct, there was jubilation in the streets. A crowd of nearly ten thousand spontaneously convened itself in celebration of the vote in Eiwena's Grand Square and, mirroring North Vyfarlan celebrations prior to the vote, fireworks were set off at the event. The crowd was eventually addressed by Aune Vazsye, who credited the Kryfonsparliszaiye with "making the right decision" and "resisting North Vyfarla's autocratic planter-class;" both remarks were met with thunderous applause.
The night of the 14th passed without incident in either Vyfarla otherwise; however, the Loyalists were taken aback by the failure to pass the bill and regrouped, calling an emergency meeting of MPs for the 16th. The day after the vote, major protest broke out in all of North Vyfarla's major cities. An assembly in Jiviheda drew almost thirty-five thousand people, later escalating that afternoon into vandalism and violence against institutions perceived as favoring South Vyfarla. The Royalist office in the city was defaced with pro-incorporationist slogans and had its windows smashed in by a mob; down the street, three shops selling wares from South Vyfarla were burned to the ground. Seventeen other businesses were burned during the events, and nearly three-hundred people were arrested by police. Unrest also continued into the next day: four people were killed in an early-morning firebombing at the Vyfarlan Association of Farmers building, targeted presumably over its shipments of food to South Vyfarla.
Major unrest was also recorded in Vahays on the 15th, where a crowd of two-thousand gathered and burned down a number of businesses and housing complexes associated with South Vyfarlans or South Vyfarlan goods. In Kavadaz, two visiting South Vyfarlan businessmen were assassinated by unidentified radicals and their bodies were strung before the city hall. No arrests were ever made in relation to the assassinations. Protests were more peaceful in Geriunse, where five-thousand marched with minor incident; other more peaceful protests also took place in Rugys, where one-thousand rallied at the city hall to petition the federal government. Nonetheless, violence related to the vote in North Vyfarla led to at least 16 deaths and an unknown amount of injuries and property damage on 15 and 16 February. A call for peace was placed on the front page of Jivihedasi on 16 February, but to little avail in preventing the violence.
Condemnations of the violence were sweeping, coming from both Royalists and Loyalists–the pro-incorporation Loyalist caucus in particular was embarrassed by the outbreak and put out a statement before meeting on the 16th stating that the violence was limited to "hooligans and radicals", although they maintained that there was no place for such actions in the Kryfona political domain. In South Vyfarla, there was outrage at the violence and calls for resolute separation from North Vyfarla in both the press and public: numerous "Keep Vyfarla Split!" rallies were also organized in the immediate aftermath of the violence, drawing equal crowds to those that had gathered in protest in North Vyfarla.
