[Sanctaria]

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[floatleft]VOL. C .. Num. 36,496[/floatleft]SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2018[floatright]1 SANCTARIAN POUND[/floatright]

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NEW POLITICS IN A NEW SANCTARIA
by GWEN COPLEY, Political Correspondent

Sanctus - Legislation officialising the referendum result was signed by President Woodstrom this morning - Sanctaria will become a federalised country at one minute past midnight on January 1st, 2019. While the entire process will take much longer than this referendum campaign, the Democratic Left Party, and in particular Secretary for Devolution and Governmental Affairs Ben Jackson, have been in a jubilous mood since the returning officer announced last Sunday that 61% of voters had voted in favour of their initiative. But as the saying goes a week is a long time in politics, and the past week has proved surprising for those of all parties and none.

On Monday the Christian Union Party announced that their leader, John Halligan, would be resigning as leader to take over one of the CUP's new state-level branches - the Terra Monticolarum branch. His reason was simple - Terra Monticolarum will have the biggest concentration of CUP voters. Based on previous elections, Halligan is in a great position to become the first Premier of Terra Monticolarum should the votes next year fall his way.

But it does signal that the CUP is acknowledging they will never be a force on the national stage again and to stay relevant, they need to focus on state-level governments, especially now when a great dearth of law and responsibility is being devolved on these new federal states.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of the Sanctarian Conservative Party to take a hit. Andrew Silk, the party's most prominent and fiercest conservatives, announced that he would be contesting the 2019 state elections in Novum Aeternum - a state almost guaranteed to be SCP dominated. Setting himself up to take over leadership of the new state-level Novum Aeternum SCP, Silk will almost certainly be Premier of Novum Aeternum when their state government is properly in place in January 2020.

Or will he?

On Wednesday it was reported that hard-line conservatives in the SCP, including Andrew Silk, were reportedly considering splitting from the SCP and forming a new party, the New Sanctaria Party. The domain name has already been purchased and offices bought in states like Terra Monticolarum and Novum Aeternum. That report cited sources saying this new NSP would try to turn conservatives from both the SCP and the CUP to their further right-wing party; not quite as right-wing as the nationalist Sanctarian People's Party, it is reported, but more hardline than either the SCP or the CUP have been since the 70s.

If successful, and it would be a great gambit, it would be a massive hit to the SCP's plans to build up dominance in the states - and perhaps nationally too. Is this the beginning of the end of the SCP's dominance in Sanctarian politics?

On Thursday it was the turn of the DLP for bad news. Haven's Independent Senator, June Warren, announced she would run in the election to become Haven's Governing-Mayor in May 2019. Haven, one of the three new city-states that will have state governments right away because of the existing structures of devolution, was on course to deliver a DLP Mayor; now it's likely Warren will steal that accolade from them to become the city's first independent mayor.

Sanctaria will be, from January 2019, changed, changed utterly. And while all parties campaigned that Sanctaria would be better for it, their internal political structures and fortunes may not be.

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Read more articles on the SNT website: http://snt.istariis.eu/