1984, proved to be the most instrumental year in the history of the Koldan State. To understand the 2024 Election, one must understand 1984.
After over a decade of a brutal civil war, whose name changes on who you’re asking, (we will use the generally accepted academic name), Kolda was ready for peace. The KLF had taken most of modern-day Kolda by January 1984, as a result, the President of the Brissiac Republic needed a solution. Andrien Duchamps had led the minority-rule state for the previous 20 years. Duchamp’s had been in negotiations with Koldan moderates since September of 1983, yet failed to settle the conflict. However, just weeks into 1984, Duchamps and Assane Malack, leaders of the Koldan Congress Party released their agreement.
First of all, a new country would be created The Republic of Kolda, within it, a highly independent region known as the Brissiac Regional Republic. Second of all, an election would be held in June of 1984, to determine Kolda’s first president. All politicians regardless of race and region would be allowed to run. Third of all, and most controversially, the Brissiac Republic would include land owned by Arrivee (white) farmers regardless of location. It was the third section of the agreement, that argued the Koldan Liberation Front, the organization that was denied participation at the conference. Although Seynabou Gano, leader of the KLF agreed to stop fighting, with the border between Brissiac and the rest of Kolda being where troops were located at the time of the ceasefire.
The KLF quickly reorganized from a militia group to a registered political party known as the Koldan Liberation Front-Union or KLF-U. Despite, his willingness to stop fighting, the Great War veteran Gano railed against the Saint Nazerine Agreement. Gano called Assane “an agent of the bourgeoisie” with class becoming the socialist Gano’s dividing issue. Due to the election being a single round, Gano largely ignored urban areas and tapped into rural Koldan’s frustration with how economics had been managed. Meanwhile, Assane provided a vision of racial unity between Arrivees and Koldans with programs to build economic recovery and self-sufficiency among urban Koldans. Duchamps meanwhile spent much of his campaign in the Moudjerria Region, whose people had often been at odds with Koldan’s for generations, additionally, Duchamps was a veteran of the Moudjerria Revolt and had fought against unpopular groups of rebels.
Even before the election, violence occurred between supporters of Gano and Duchamp’s. Many Arrivee who lived outside the borders of the main Brissiac Region were targeted by left-wing militants who used car bombings and kidnappings to force Arrivee communities to flee. Duchamp’s called out Gano, for encouraging violence, although Gano denied any involvement. Additionally, in Saint-Paul, the capital of the Brissiac Region, Koldan’s were the target of xenophobic harassment and police intimidation.
In the end, Gano received 39.5% of the vote in what was generally a fair election by international observation. On June 18th, 1984 the first day of the Koldan Republic, Gano was inaugurated in front of the National Assembly in the temporary capital building in Lenens. Immediately, Gano ordered the military to seize land abandoned by Arrivee in rural Kolda. Despite protests from Brissiac, Gano also ordered for the border between the Brissiac Region at the rest of Kolda to be secured. At this point, just weeks into the new nation’s history it looked as if the country would once again go to war. Surprisingly, however, Duchamps negotiated with Gano, creating a then-secret agreement known as the Great Separation. Kolda would be built with a socialist model, while Brissiac would be allowed to ignore national economic policy. Duchamp’s would move Arrivee’s south of the Brissiacan border, while Gano would allow for existing Koldan’s in Brissiac to be segerated from society. This agreement has allowed for the Brissiac Union Party and the KLF-U to respectively retain power since. Although the Great Separation is no longer an official policy, it has created the current political and economic climate with Brissiac being a capitalist, wealthy corporate paradise, and the rest of Kolda, a rapidly developing although still corrupt autocratic state.
