NCO, 2019
Successful FICT summit with new FSSC director from DNC
(12 May) - A successful summit of FICT was concluded yesterday in Purikali, the capital of Kaupelan during which the director of the New Curonian Oceanographic Institute Dr. Cornwall Flores Caamaño was appointed as the new director of the FICT Secretariat for Scientific Cooperation (FSSC), succeeding Faruk Yeriyeg from Harrawi as of 1 June. Yeriyeg wasn't reelegible after completing his first three year term. Dr. Flores Caamaño (52) is a maritime biologist specialised in hippocampinae indigenous to the eastern Caribbean and has been heading the Oceanographic Institute for almost five years. According to some of the local gossip press, Dr Flores Caamaño will be glad to move to Clive-on-the-Hill in Guelphia, where FSSC's headquarters are located, following his messy divorce to singer Andrea Moorecombe last month. Minister of foreign affairs Andrejs Berķis called Dr. Flores Caamaño's appointment a 'festive moment' as it has put our country in the spotlights within FICT.
The rest of the meeting proceeded without much ado: Adzhatia was selected as the host country of the 2021 edition of the FICT Games and a delegation from the Kronenburg was present to discuss the possibility of membership. Kronenburg has been named as a potential member of FICT ever since the organisation was founded in 2011 but successive Kronenburg governments had so far declined any such possibility. A change of composition of the coalition government earlier this year however has put FICT membership on the table. New Courland has been in business with Kronenburg already via the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Exumbran Convention (ExC).
Backlash for PDP as Labour secures Jauna Piltene
(25 March) - An unexpected drama took place during the mayoral elections in the municipality of Jauna Piltene yesterday when incumbent Mayor Everett Bailey (Progress and Development Party, PDP) lost to oppositional candidate Doris Emerson-Truro of the Labour Party: Emerson won decisively with more than 60%. During the campaign a victory by Emerson, despite her incessive listing of everything that had gone wrong in Jauna Piltene under the previous Mayors Edgars Ķīlis (Conservative Party, 2007 - 2015) and Bailey (2015 - 2019), seemed unlikely and Bailey's campaign had therefore been directed mostly to his Conservative opponent Dylan Stanley, son of Jauna Piltene's first Mayor John Stanley. Together with Emerson, a majority of the electorate must have felt ignored by the usual suspects to gain the municipality's leadership and so they cast a surprise vote for Emerson, who will be the first Labour Party mayor countrywide since Peter Hunter was defeated as Mayor of Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Dolor in 1990.
Mayoral elections in Maza Osta/Little Harbour that took place as well yesterday were less eventful: PDP candidate Guna Pauļuka won the election as expected from her opponents of the Conservative Party and the Social Consideration Party and will succeed her three time victorious fellow PDP member Roger Halkett (2007 - 2019) as Mayor.
Next Diet elections on 2 June
(1 March) - The next elections for the Diet will take place on Sunday 2 June. This was announced by Prime Minister Laila Miró-Rozenberga (Progress and Development Party, PDP) today. By law, parliamentary elections have to take place within 1500 days after the last one; as the last election took place on 7 June 2015, the deadline for the next one is on 15 July this year. The number of seats per municipality will be as it was during the last election (Louise Charlotte 10, Zelta Kalni 6, Yeovil 4, Jauna Piltene 3, Penllergaer 2, Kettler's Port 2, Nuestra Señora 1, and Maza Osta 1); the next revision is scheduled for 2022.
Although unexpected surprises may happen, it is expected that the Prime Minister will be allowed another tenure. Miró-Rozenberga was selected as a compromise party leader and therefore became Prime Minister after her precedessor Prime Minister Luis Lavalleja lost the support of a party majority after the PDP lost seats for the fourth time in a row, despite winning the election. Neither he nor his main rival Thomas Seneviratne the popular major of Yeovil, were able to secure a stable support and Miró-Rozenberga was elected instead. During her tenure as the tenth Prime Minister of the Duchy of New Courland she proved to be a competent and efficient leader under whose leadership a so far successful plan to curb emigration from young New Curonians to larger countries (most importantly the United States) was introduced.
Miró-Rozenberga's main rival is Ilga Lieckalniņa of the Conservative Party who seeks to have her party return to power for the first time since 2006. Currently the Conservative Party has 9 seats in the Diet but according to polls their support has steadily grown in recent years. Most of this growth seem to have been at the cost of smaller parties however such as Constructive Vision and the Independence Party, whereas the ruling PDP has so far managed to keep the small majority of 15 seats that they obtained after the 2015 elections.