Dominique Drapeau
| His Excellency Dominique Jean Drapeau LLL, LLD | |
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| 15th President of Kelssek | |
| In office | October 1, 2006 - present |
| Born | July 9, 1958 Fleurimont, Beaulac |
| Profession | Lawyer |
Dominique Jean Drapeau (born July 9, 1958) is the 15th and current President of Kelssek. He began serving his first five-year term in 2006.
Labour movement
Drapeau served as Chairman of the Trades Union Congress for seven years prior to being elected president and has made a career as a leader of the labour movement in Kelssek. He was born and grew up in Fleurimont, Beaulac. He graduated with a law degree from the Université de Fleurimont and was admitted to the Barreau du Beaulac in 1981.
He worked in labour law for the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Saint-Remy and won a leadership position when he was elected to its central committee as Director for Legal Services in 1992. He would later be elected Chairman of the Trades Union Congress in 1998. After declining to run for a third term as chairman in 2005, he set his sights higher and began his campaign for President in the winter of that year.
President
The first round of the Presidential election in 2006 eliminated all but Drapeau and former Bank of Kelssek chairman Jonathan Peters. Drapeau won a stunning 71% of the vote in the second round, a backlash after the August Crisis (see History of Kelssek) where right-wing militants kidnapped and killed federal Labour Minister Justin Kermana, as well as a Free Pacific States diplomat. Another reason analysts attributed to his landslide was his outspoken criticisms of capitalism in contrast to Peters's diplomatic and reserved style on the campaign trail. This included a controversial incident where Drapeau was interpreted as calling for socialist countries to attack ACCEL members; Drapeau claimed his remarks, made in French, were mistranslated based on their being taken out of context, and that he meant only that solidarity was needed in the defence of socialist economies. He was sworn in on October 1, 2006, succeeding Joseph Sutter.
A potential international incident occured when his swearing-in prompted an attack on Kelssek's socialist system by East Dannistaan's First Minister Kelly Minn'ow-Jones. Drapeau initially responded by threatening to make an official diplomatic complaint against her, but decided not to pursue the matter after the Dannistaan central government apologised on Minn'ow-Jones's behalf.
Although ideologically in agreement with his home province, Drapeau is generally unpopular in Beaulac, as well as in Roites, because he is perceived as favouring greater federal power, which would in the view of French-Kelssekian nationalists erode the power of the francophone provinces and of francophones versus the English majority.
