After several days of often angry and tense debate, President Xiadani of Huenya has survived a no-confidence vote that could have removed her from office. While the final vote was more than sufficient to ensure that the President remained in office, the total “no” vote against her was higher than expected.
There were two notable defections from the President’s usual supporters in the vote. Seventeen members of the Party of Huitzilopochtli, the religious movement that helped spark the Huenyan revolt during the Second Xiomeran Civil War, broke ranks with the rest of their party to vote against Xiadani. Their spokesperson, Quemoca (PH-Ulum), said that the President’s “belligerent and hostile stance towards ethnic Xiomerans questioning the government and the nation” helped provoke the recent surge in insurgent violence.
This belief was echoed repeatedly by legislators voting to remove the President. “This President basically dared the insurgents to attack, and had the nation woefully unprepared to defend itself when they responded to that challenge,” Ochixochin (Green Party-Tecapantal) said. “It was a reckless and thoughtless belligerence that almost cost us our capital twice, cost us the Tihanang region, and worst of all cost us thousands of lives.”
The leftist coalition in the Legislature, led by the Greens and the Democratic Socialists of Huenya, was expected to vote against Xiadani en masse, and they did so. The biggest surprise, however, was the other notable defection from the President’s base: thirty-six members of her own Unification Party. Calling themselves the “True Unification Caucus”, the thirty-six voted against the President because of their belief that she had abandoned the cause of unifying the Huenyan subcontinent under a free and democratic Huenyan state.
The President leaned heavily on her conservative base to retain her position. The majority of the Party of Huitzilopochtli backed her, as did the majority of the Unification Party in the Legislature. A surprise show of support came from the Huenyan Peoples’ Party, which voted en masse to retain Xiadani despite their normally being part of the leftist bloc in the Legislature. This vote led to accusations from the Greens and Communists that the HCP was taking orders from their backers in the Milintican Peoples’ Party to support Xiadani, a claim that briefly led to scuffles on the floor before order was restored.
Another controversy emerged when Huenya Standing Tall, the Huenyan nationalist party notorious for hard right sentiments, also threw all its votes behind the President. “Xiadani choosing not to repudiate the support of the ultra-nationalist and far-right members of this Legislature only shows that she will do anything to retain her position,” Cameca (Green Party-Conopoc) accused.
At the end of the vote, however, the outcome was not especially close. Speaking after the vote, the President thanked those who had voted to keep her in office. She also noted the unexpectedly large vote against her. “It’s clear that we have work to do to bring Huenya together, and that starts with bridging these divides,” she said. The President said that she plans to invite representatives from both the conservative and leftist blocs of the Legislature to the presidential residence to discuss how Huenya can move forward “in a spirit of unity and cooperation.”
