Flora Haber

Flora Carmela Haber is a Socialist politician in the Confederated Peoples. She is currently a member of the Nabarran Cortes and is almost guaranteed to represent the Socialists on the first Confederal Council as the head of the Department of Justice. She has also been mentioned as a possible Confederal Vice-President.

Haber is a native of Donnacona. Her father was a fur worker and she became a textile worker at the age of 16. She entered the Vasconian Textile Workers' Union as an ordinary worker and she became an activist in the Nabarran Socialist Party through the union. While working full-time, first in the factory and then for the union as a full-time organizer, she managed to put herself through university and then through law school. From 1998-2001, she was a "movement lawyer." In 2001, she was pre-selected by the Socialists to be the candidate for her local seat and she won. In the Cortes, Haber spoke out on many unpopular issues, earning a reputation as the "conscience of the Cortes."

Political career

Haber has built her political career around campaigning for workers' rights, consumer protections, public services and more democratic local governance. However, she is best known for consistently championing indigenous rights and the rights of the inhabitants of the Imperial Islands, positions frequently unpopular with many voters of European extraction. Among other policies, she has advocated reforms in community-police relations in the Imperial Islands, advocated recognition of Gadic and Papamiento as official languages and advocated limited local self-government.

Confederal Councilor

Predicted election

It is widely predicted that Haber will be elected to the Confederal Council as the Socialist Party's representative on that body and furthermore that she will be appointed as head of the Department of Justice. Although she is a qualified attorney, she is not likely to be the most qualified jurist on the Council and this has led to some puzzlement over why she is so favored to head this particular department by both the right and the left.

Progressive Democrat Sarah Sacker has said that Haber is best suited to head the Department of Justice because of her idealism. According to Sacker, of all the departments, Justice moreso than any other must be run by a genuine idealist with unquestioned personal integrity in order to guarantee the rights of both victims of crimes and the accused. Republican James Thompson,on the other hand, has mostly made a negative argument that the Socialists in general and Haber in particular should not be trusted with any of the economic departments. He has claimed that Haber should be exluded from departments such as Finance, Industrial Affairs and Infrastructure because of what he calls her "Utopianism," which he claims would prevent her from functioning competently.