Candelaria And Marquez

Candelaria And Marquez

Flag of Candelaria And Marquez
Motto: Solidarity of the Nation
Unavailable
Region	Rushmore
Capital	Albrecht
Official Language(s)	English, Spanish Both widely used
Leader	President James Anderson
Population	Unnecessarily Large
Currency	Reformed Pound
NS Sunset XML

The Republic of Candelaria And Marquez, formerly The Dominion of the Candelarias and The Republic of the Candelarias, is a country in the region of Rushmore comprising two large islands (the western generally referred to as Candelaria and the smaller eastern island as Marquez) and several smaller islands, most notably Green, Fallon, Sloane, Knee and Pranschke which are collectively, with their islets, known as the Outliers.

The population is traditionally of European descent, with an occasionally bitter cultural split occurring between the predominantly British-influenced western island and Hispanic-dominated Marquez. Today the republic is a fairly well-integrated multi-ethnic welfare state with increasingly liberal attitudes to civil life and a non-confrontational foreign policy. It has claimed a negligible crime-rate for some years.

The country - most commonly referred to as C&M - is considered an 'Inoffensive Centrist Democracy' by the United Nations. Its citizens are perversely proud of their nation's sheer average ness, newspaper polls showing an overwhelmingly favourable reaction to the March 2007 announcement that C&M was the 'least extreme' country in Rushmore.

After a largely abortive War of Independence in 1887, the islands gained full independence from Britain in 1947 as the Republic of the Candelarias and has maintained a stable government and peaceful attitude to it's neighbours since, with a major exception being the short but brutal Civil War from 1959-60 between those loyal to the autocratic Socialist government and the Opposition Liberal-Conservative alliance.

Political power is held by the democratically-elected House of Representatives, under the leadership of the anachronistically-titled President who is the Head of Government.

Name

The island group was first referred to as Candelaria in the late 16th Century by fishermen from Tenerife who also later provided the name of the eastern island which became known as Marquez from the then administrative capital (today a small fishing community). The distinct use of 'Candelaria' for the largest island is a recent phenomenon used often dismissively by Marquezian Hispanics in the early 20th Century but shortly taken up by the island's inhabitants. The use of 'Candelarian' as the descriptive form of all peoples from the island group is theoretically accurate, but has become seen as discriminatory towards individuals from Marquez; an issue that has been seen to raise the passions of all ethnic and cultural groups on the island is recent years. As a result, most of the media and government have taken to using C&M (pronounced see-ænd-em) as the politically sensitive short-form name and adjective for the islands to avoid the cumbersome full form. Most of the islands' place names are derived from the surnames of early settlers, though many on the west coast of Marquez were anglicised, or replaced altogether, in the mid-19th Century. This too has provided a hotly debated bone of contention between the islands' people for many decades. In a particularly bizarre episode of cross-island animosity in 1980, as a condition of their membership in the governing coalition the Free Marquez party demanded a law forcing all publishers in the republic to capitalise the 'a' of 'and' in 'Candelaria And Marquez', in order to give 'equal status' to the two main islands. The move was widely derided but the law was passed, and there have been several successful prosecutions in the years since.

History

Main article(s): History of Candelaria And Marquez

Government

Main article(s): Politics of Candelaria And Marquez

From 1868 until 1947 C&M was a constitutional monarchy under the British crown with a parliamentary democracy. Today, parliament has only one legislative chamber, the House of Representatives, which seats 260 members. Elections are held ever four years, with each citizen having two votes - one national, one for their local constituency. Two hundred members are appointed on a proportional basis from party lists. There is no threshold for representation. Upon the declaration of the Second Republic in 1960, the title of Head of Government was transferred to a popularly elected President. Oversights in the 1960 Second Constitution allowed David Clarke, who had become President in 1962 following the resignation of Kjell Olousson III, to become both President and Prime Minister after the 1964 election, being also the leader of the break-away Unionist Party which surprisingly won the House elections. In response to the Gordon Bay Incident, Clarke forbad the 1968, and all further, Presidential elections, a situation which has remained in place ever since, being officially recognised in a 1978 amendment. As a result, the leader of the largest party in the House becomes Head of State and President for a maximum of two terms. He/she appoints the Prime Minister and has the right to be consulted over all major ministerial appointments.

The current President is James Anderson, leader of the Unionist Party. Since 12 May 2004 the Unionists have been in formal coalition with the Conservative Party, the Libertarian-Unionists and Kezia Melkam, the Independent MotH for Warne, giving the government 135 members.

The Leader of the Opposition has been Liberal Party leader Dr Robyn Morton since 9 February 2007, when she succeeded Sol McPhee. The Social Democratic & Green Party, led by Ariadne Jefferson are also in opposition. The seven other parties in the House all vote against the government on some legislation.

Key government members as of March 2007 include:

Vice-President Tate Sayfritz (Conservative)
Prime Minister Joseph Frank
Deputy Prime Minister Hasson Lazarus (Libertarian-Unionist)
Defence, Ben Cara Eliot
Finance, Saul Lewis
Foreign Affairs, Eric White
Social Affairs, Reuben Queseda
Regional Affairs, Tamara Amoruso

Upon full independence in 1947, the executive powers of the Monarch's Governor-General were transferred to a 100-seat Second Chamber called the Senate, with members appointed from a variety of sources. This held true until 1994, when all major political parties backed the Senate's reduction to an atrophied, largely advisory, twelve-member National Council appointed by the President, Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Its' current chair is Jenna Kmosko.

Foreign relations and the military

Geography

Flora and fauna

Economy

Demographics

Approximately 85% of the C&M population are of European descent. In the 2005 census nearly 50% of the population claimed majority ancestry from the British Isles, but such statistics are difficult to sustain. Throughout the islands' history, many immigrants of continental European ancestry have anglicised their names, or adopted new ones altogether, a fact that accounts for the high percentage of 'occupation' and 'descendent of' surnames within the 'British' population. The census also suggested that around 18% of citizens were of Hispanic origin, a claim disputed by Marquezian nationalist groups - who would put the figure at considerably higher. Issues arise with those of mixed Hispanic and non-Hispanic ancestry, as well as the many who are increasingly living lives separate from the insular traditions of their ancestors.

While always committed to retaining the Anglo-Spanish flavour of it’s' culture and government, C&M has always had a relatively open immigration policy. Italians, Dutch and Czechs were the largest non-mainstream groups to arrive throughout the 19th century, but each new generation has provided a different face to new Candelarians. Considerable Swedish and Turkish immigration occurred in the late 1800s. The most notable new additions of the early 20th century included many thousands of refugees from South America, considerably bolstering the islands' Spanish-speaking population, as well as providing the first major influx of obviously non-white individuals. Recent decades have brought many Chinese, Africans (particularly Nigerians) and Pakistanis to the islands, who have been integrated with relative ease into a country with little prior experience of multi-racial society. Despite the innately dualistic nature of the islands' people and culture, society has long been ambivalent towards notions of multi-culturalism. The earliest settlers from European minority groups were welcomed, but strongly encouraged to abandon their own languages and much of their distinct national identities. The presence of many foreign words and expressions in Candelarian English, as well as the rich culinary variety of the islands, suggests that this advice was not always taken up, but it is certainly true that there is little evidence of interest in the dual identities that are apparent and encouraged in many other mixed-origin nations. Many even question whether there is any such thing as a distinct Hispanic culture, even on Marquez, with seemingly increasing numbers abandoning Spanish, given their children English names, and showing an increasingly ambivalent attitude towards their community's traditional staunch Catholicism. Public debate over multi-culturalism in the country has centred on the recent influx of Turkish immigrants, who are seen to live lives far detached from mainstream society. Media reports regularly associate this group with drug-related gun-crime, an issue that found popular support after the March 2001 death of schoolboy Adam Gerrard in the cross-fire between two gangs. The murder has since propelled the boy's mother, Landi Gerrard-Landolfi to the position of C&M's Minister for Social Justice, a platform she has used to criticise both the shadowy nature of some immigrant groups and their perceived demonisation in the media.

The 2005 census indicated that Christianity was by far the largest faith with some 49% of respondents identifying themselves as adherents. The Anglicanism was still the major denomination, though Roman Catholicism has showed signs of catching up. Buddhism and Islam accounted for 2% and 1.8% respectively. The majority of the remainder identified themselves as 'non-religious', a fact which supports the limited impact of faith in public life. The secularist influence of the works of Reuben Merchant, and the country's natural quiet socialism, has led to an often militantly agnostic approach by much of the press, which regularly mocks politicians and other figures who express strong religious convictions. Those who commit themselves thus seldom manage great electoral success, in public or within their party. A notable exception of recent years has been the Christian People's Party, reformed in 1999 in the image of the once successful Christian Patriotic Party. Under the charismatic Joel Hopkins, they achieved an unprecedented 2.05% share of the popular vote in the 2004 election, garnering four MotHs. Joseph van der Woude's Humanist Party, created in 2001 largely to challenge Hopkins' group, gained 1.53% of the vote that year, giving them three MotHs.

Culture

Contemporary Candelaria And Marquez has a diverse culture which has developed beyond its original English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Spanish influences. Like many English-speaking countries, C&M has been successful in assimilating the favoured elements of foreign language, music, values, dress and cuisine. The latter case has perhaps had the most influence, with Italian, Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and Turkish dishes in particular surpassing many traditional British and Spanish eating habits in their popularity and widespread use. The republic is very much part of the modern world culture; with art, music, film and television - whether popularist or high-society - as likely to be of foreign origin as home-grown. Music from larger English-speaking nation traditionally dominated the charts in the second half of the 20th century, but local acts have shown signs of beginning to hold their own. Six of the top ten best-selling albums of 2006 were C&M-made, while more tellingly, bands including Big Foot Social Club, Patsy's Magic Bullet and The High Court, and singer-songwriters Guy Hirsz and Natasha Norman have achieved a modicum of success in the wider region. C&M's best-selling artists abroad, however, remain thrash-metal act FosterPussycatDieDieDie. Apparently.

The line-up of C&M's most watched television stations, TV1, TTO, WorldVision and Onwere TV have a similar international flavour, where Riikian sitcoms, poorly-dubbed Yerduan crime thrillers and Switzaland-made cookery shows wrestle for air time with locally produced soaps. In the latter case, the venerable Home is Where the Hart is and its brasher cousin Holy Road remain C&M's most popular programmes. The influence of political satire Billy-Bob's New Hat (so called for punning reasons far too convoluted to explain to foreigners), appears to far outweigh it's viewing figures given that in a 2005 newspaper poll, nearly 2% of correspondents identified President Lorimer Rosenkranz, the character played in the show by former spaghetti-western star Cade Harper as the nation's real-world leader.

As with television, most radio stations and newspapers cover the entire nation, and as such their numbers are relatively limited, but take-up is never-the-less large. The traditional forces of the Albrecht Mercury and Radio Zero Alvery still lead the way, but the bohemian products of Onwere University are gaining recognition, at home and abroad, for ground-breaking programming.

Sports

The ubiquitousness of British culture in the islands inevitably brought a love of amateur sport; association football, cricket and rugby having been wildly popular for many decades. The professional scene has always suffered, however, and none more so than football. A professional league was finally set up in the 1940s, and quickly became the domain of big business, often to the detriment of the previously more popular amateur clubs, which had remained true to their Corinthian spirit. A not unfair association with fan violence increasing turned avid supporters into media pariahs, while by the 70s, the increasing availability of television - and the technically superior foreign product - resulted in the league's collapse. Not until 1983 did the C&M FA create a new amateur cup competition, to be coupled with an annual 7-game series between representative sides from Candelaria Island and Marquez & the Outliers. A drip-feed of club sides were allowed into an expanded competition from the 85/86 season, becoming a full 16-team league in 1992. The CMSC is now the most watched sports championship in the country.

Other sports do test football in it’s' popularity. Despite the indifferent attitude to private vehicles in the islands, the AutoSportSeries has become a major national event since its inception in 1992. Local drivers Quintin Wright and Pat Berryman dominate the competition, having shared all the championships this decade between them. The highest number of championship points by a single driver were amassed by Riik-born driver Ikir Loni in 1999. Loni was deported the following year for tax evasion.

One of the few sports that C&M excels in internationally is - perhaps unsurprisingly - yacht racing, where Hannah Wisniewski has dominated the women's events in Rushmore for the past decade. Domestically she has won ten of the last eleven National Championships, smashing her own record in 2005 to beat the field by 33 minutes. The following year her winning margin was cut to just two minutes by her fifteen-year-old protégé Eleigh Roberts. Wisniewski and Roberts went on to win the 2006 C&M Sports Personality of the Year and Young Sports Personality of the Year awards respectively.