WAIRARAPA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, MILINTICA – With just over a week before Milinticans go to the polls for national elections, the two leading candidates for President clashed in the only scheduled presidential debate.
Incumbent President and Milintican Peoples’ Party leader Matōchmizalo has been facing a tough fight against Neina Arana, leader of the Milintican Communist Party. Arana was a former member of Matōchmizalo’s cabinet before being fired for her outspoken criticisms of the President’s policies. Since taking over as leader of the MCP, Arana has managed to shift the balance of power in the Representative Assembly by convincing twenty MPP representatives to switch to the MCP. With the MPP currently holding 44 Assembly seats to the MCP’s 32, both parties are fighting hard to win as many Assembly races as possible. The MPP finds itself facing a competitive election for the first time in almost a century, fueled by hardline communist supporters and traditional-minded Milinticans angry at the move by Matōchmizalo towards his program of “modern socialism”.
That move towards social democracy and away from traditional Milintican communism, along with the perceived lack of support by Matōchmizalo’s government for communist movements abroad, has been the major source of conflict between the two sides. The conflict was on full display at the debate, as the two bitter rivals hurled accusations and insults at each other.
On foreign policy and trade, Arana accused Matōchmizalo of betraying the “Milintican tradition of using the strength of our arms and the lead from our guns” to support communist and leftist governments and movements in other nations. “When a people’s movement in Auria needed our help, you cowered with your Eirian puppetmasters and negotiated a shameful deal. When the people’s government of Taragai was toppled by reactionary minions, you did nothing. Because of your cowardice and your fake, performative ‘socialism’, you lost Taragai. You lost our chance to liberate the people of Auria. You’re a coward and closet capitalist. I would say that you left us isolated and alone as the only standard-bearer for the people’s revolution in the world. But in truth, we can’t even say that. Your ‘reforms’ are meant to destroy the revolutionary spirit even here in Milintica! While you court capitalists and right-wing leaders abroad, you stab the Milintican people in the back and plot to change our country. How much of your foreign puppetmasters’ money has lined your pockets, for you to betray the worldwide people’s revolution like this?”
Matōchmizalo responded by calling Arana “a bitter and ugly fossil stuck in the past” whose own foreign policy and trade stances would be disastrous, not his. “Under the MPP, we have undertaken trade initiatives with other countries to strengthen our economy and lift our people from poverty. We have joined our fellow free nations in Caxcana through the UCS to stand together as a shield against Xiomeran aggression. Milintica is safer and more prosperous because of our administration’s work with other countries. Your agenda to force other countries to adopt a political system as old as you are, and isolate us from countries that don’t, would be a disaster. You would be the one to leave us isolated and alone, with a crashing economy and no one to stand with us if the Xiomerans or some other enemy comes knocking on our door.”
Arana responded to the mention of the UCS as “an alliance of capitalist and reactionary states that have no common values with us” and reiterated her pledge to withdraw Milintica from the alliance if she is elected. The debate then shifted to national defense, with Arana repeating her promise to pursue nuclear weapons for Milintica “to ensure that we are able to deter anyone, even Xiomera, from posing any further threat to us.” Arana also accused Matōchmizalo of being weak on defense, citing the occupied island of Aoatea as an example. “Xiomera has occupied sovereign Milintican soil for over five decades. The evil Xiomeran regime routinely imprisons any Milinticans who try to travel to Aoatea. You would continue to have us do nothing but beg the Xiomerans for Aoatea’s return. Talk and words are cheap. If we force the Xiomerans out of Aoatea, with the nuclear firepower to back us up, even Calhualyana would be forced to bend the knee for the first time in her life and walk away.”
The President responded by calling Arana “an absolute madwoman” who would lead Milintica into a war it couldn’t possibly win. “Do you think the Xiomerans would just wait for us to build up a nuclear arsenal to threaten them? They would bomb us flat to the ground if we tried!” Arana responded by calling Matōchmizalo a coward again, and said that Milintica could acquire nuclear technology and weapons from Huenya to expedite the process. “The Huenyans have as much reason to hate and fear Calhualyana’s regime as we do. I am confident they would cooperate,” Arana said. This earned mocking laughter from Matōchmizalo. “The Huenyans are no more stupid or suicidal than the MPP is, or anyone other than you, for that matter.”
The debate then moved to domestic policies. Matōchmizalo pledged to continue his economic and political reforms, and touted their success. “Our reforms are opening up the Milintican economy. They have generated thousands of jobs and lifted thousands out of crippling poverty. Our currency is finally worth more than a cracker and a bubble gum wrapper in most countries. You would send us back to the bad old days of a closed, planned economy and the stagnation and poverty that leads to. Our people deserve better.” Arana responded by adamantly declaring that “Milintica and its values are not for sale”. She accused the President of abandoning the traditional Milintican policy of refusing to trade with countries that follow autocratic, right-wing, environmentally unsound or “overly capitalist” trade and political policies.
The debate ended on a low note, with both candidates pointedly refusing to shake each others’ hand before Arana abruptly left the auditorium. With Milintica facing its most consequential election possibly ever, the direction the country will take is up in the air. Matōchmizalo has managed to maintain a five to ten point lead in most polls against Arana. But he is facing the possibility that even if he wins, his own party may lose control of the Representative Assembly for the first time since 1928.
