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FASCIST PARTY
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The Fascist Party of Lendosa is committed to the promotion of the ideology known as fascism, although its version of that doctrine is probably the most mild version that can still be regarded as "fascist". The party distances itself from what it calls "corrupted" fascism in countries with more radical movements. It claims that its policies stand for strength, discipline, and unity.

The Fascist Party does not hold seats in the Lendosan Senate. The party's leader is Tavo Irigo, and the deputy leader is Edaro Muriso. Curto Almargo holds the position of Secretary.


Colour and Emblem

The Fascist Party's official colour is black, and it uses a stylized lightning bolt as its official party emblem.

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The party's name in the Lendian language is "lo Partido Fascisto" (or, in one dialect, "lo Partido Fazisto").


Quote

"We offer the people of Lendosa our three principles - strength, unity, and discipline. With these, we can do anything. We will no longer be held back by weakness or lack of resolve."


Key Policies

Leadership
According to the Fascist Party, it is critical for Lendosa to maintain a strong central government. It says that while the current system "provides a relatively strong administration", it does not provide "powerful or inspiring leadership".

  • Abolish representative democracy in Lendosa, as it paralyses our nation. Replace it with a system which allows for one strong leader who may act decisively for the betterment of the people.
  • Abolish the false distinction between "public" and "private" - all actions have an effect on the state or on society, whether by helping it, harming it, or simply wasting its potential. As such, there can be no area of life in which the state may not intervene for the national interest.
  • Recognize the right of the state to take control of any element of the economy it wishes to - while competition serves as excellent motivation, and ensures that only the best are able to prosper, it is impermissable that production is wasted through lack of planning when it could otherwise be made to serve the interests of the nation. There should be competition, but the state should determine the goal of this competition.
Militarism
The Fascist Party believes strongly in the idea of a powerful military, both for the purposes of war and for the "strengthening of the nation as a whole".
  • Increase military expenditure markedly, building up both offensive and defensive capability in all three branches of the armed forces.
  • Renounce Lendosa's adherence to the Weapons Limitation Treaty.
  • Reintroduce conscription for all Lendosan citizens between certain ages. This is important both to bolster our military strength and to create a sense of discipline and purpose in our nation's youth.
  • Ensure that soldiers and veterans receive the praise they are due, and ensure they are well looked after by the government with pensions, discounts, and other rewards.
Society
According to be beliefs of the Fascist Party, modern Lendosan society is weak, and needs to be "restored to its true strength".
  • Revoke all government welfare programs, as they encourage people to become dependent on charity. Those that do not work for themselves, whether because of laziness or incompetence, deserve to fail.
  • Cease government attempts to meddle in Lendosa's ethnic and cultural balance. Instead, leave things to occur as they will, with stronger cultures winning out over the weaker ones.
  • Promote involvement by the public in causes that benefit the national interest, such as reserve military duty, rather than petty and unimportant crusades such as environmentalism.
  • Reduce or halt immigration to Lendosa, the an influx of people not a part of the Lendosan identity weakens our state.
Crime
The Fascist Party has perhaps the harshest stance on crime for any Lendosan political party, and promotes its views very strongly. Some members of the party have, in fact, complained that the Fascists risk becoming "nothing more than a populist anti-crime party". Nevertheless, the position remains strongly supported by the party's leadership and by most members.
  • Reintroduce capital pubishment as the mandatory sentence for all major crimes, with no exceptions given. Any prison sentence of more than fifteen years will automatically be converted to the death penalty.
  • Reintroduce corporal punishment, with lashing required for all crimes (prisoners also sentenced to death will be lashed beforehand).

Issues Facing the Party

There is a certain amount of tension within the party. While it has officially renounced a number of the ideas that were present in fascist movements elsewhere (most notably the overtly racist beliefs that many fascists hold), there are those among the group's membership who disagree with some or all of those choices. The Fascist Party tends to attract far-right extremists of all types, and there is dispute about just how radical the party should be. This poses a threat to more than just party stability, however, because if the party is deemed to be advocating something against Lendosan law, it will be banned, and its leaders would probably be arrested. The adoption of anything remotely resembling racist policy would be grounds for the permanent inprisonment of anyone involved, as would anything that could be interpreted as promoting violence. This constant threat has left the Fascist Party leadership struggling to keep the group's agenda relatively "moderate".


Subparties

The Fascist Party does not have any subparties.


History of the Party

The Fascist Party is one of the older political parties still surviving, although was, for a time, merged into a larger party. Officially, it was established in 238 AP, but the actual party organization was not created until the following year. It was set up by Jurio Tamando, a former Colonel in the Imperial Army, along with a number of other ex-officers from the armed forces and police. Three primary goals were outlined in its charter.

Firstly, it would oppose the pacifist movement which had been growing in power at the time. Tamando considered the pacifists to be traitors, and felt that "loyal" citizens should do everything in their ability to combat them. Tamando believed that war was a normal and natural part of life, and moreover, that it was beneficial - he thought that war was "nature's way of ensuring that only the best survive", a sort of advanced example of natural selection. He famously condemned pacifist leader (and Utopian Party founder) Mario Lamano as being "like a lion that starves itself to death because it has moral problems with hunting."

The second goal of the Fascist Party was to force the "assimilation" of ethnic minorities and immigrants into mainstream society. Tamando claimed that by allowing cultural or linguistic differences to remain, the government created divisions and fractures in the country which would eventually lead to the nation's collapse. As such, he was a strong advocate of supression of all languages but Lendian, of encouraging Lendian migration to minority-dominated areas, and of intermarriage between Lendians and people of ethnic minorities in an attempt to "integrate" them. The Fascist Party's supporters strongly deny that Tamando's policies were based on racist thoughts, saying that he was attempting to unify all cultures, not merely destroy the small ones, and "forge a single and united race that incorperated components of all those that had been combined to make it." Many opponents of the Fascists disagree, and claim that Tamando was racist in his beliefs and actions. (It should perhaps be noted that regardless of whether Tamando was a racist or not, many racists nevertheless disagreed with his plans. Tamando sought to "disolve" minorities by intermarriage, but many racists considered intermarriage to be a threat to their race's purity. Racist elements in the Fascist Party - which undoubtedly existed, whatever Tamando's own views might have been - have often argued over this issue.)

Thirdly, the Fascist Party would seek to oppose communism and socialism. The Communist Party, which had been founded nearly twenty-five years earlier, was still an illegal organization, but had been growing in popularity. At the time of the Fascist Party's foundation, there was considerable concern in certain sectors of society, particularly the military, about the growth of the "communist threat", and Tamando believed that the Communist Party was plotting to overthrow the government and establish a socialist state. He strongly believed that the government had to take urgent action to crush the "communist traitors."

Initially, the Fascist Party was a legal organization, but when it began to grow more aggressive, and began organizing its own militia, it was banned. It continued to exist in hiding, but was dealt a significant blow when Jurio Tamando was arrested by the Panopticate on charges of sedition in 251 AP. The party soon descended into confusion, with no clear leadership emerging. In the internal disputes that followed, there was considerable debate over policy and doctrine, and by the time the core of the party had been stabilized under a new leader, Mercutio Algarto, several groups had departed, including the Militarist Party (focusing on the first of Tamando's goals, anti-pacifism) and the Radical Party (based around a subgroup of the Fascists which had formed in the early 240s, focusing on an extreme form of individualism and survivalism). The Radical Party was destroyed after the Panopticate found and arrested its leaders, but the Militarist Party made certain to operate within the law, and survived until quite recently.

Under Mercutio Algarto, the Fascist Party "reaffirmed the three founding principles" of Tamando, and continued to exist in hiding. Over the next few decades, however, its support dwindled, primarily due to its lack of any real progress in accomplishing its goals. When the Communist Party was legalized in 253 AP, members of the Fascist Party attempted to assassinate the Communist leader, Garamono Ducato, but this attempt failed, and the Panopticate arrested those involved. Another assassination attempt was made against Ducato in 261 AP, but this also failed. It subsequently led to the arrest of Mercutio Algarto by the Panopticate, leaving the Fascist Party leaderless again.

After a period of confusion, the leadership was assumed by Estoro Condro, Algarto's former deputy. Condro is regarded as being the figure who was most responsible for the Fascist Party's "legitimization", meaning that it was him who moved to decrease the group's militantism and radicalism, making it more acceptable to the average citizen. He was successful to the point that in 272 AP, the group was legalized, although like the Communist Party originally was, the Fascists were still barred from contesting elections. The Fascists did not gain a great deal of support from the public, however, and remained a small group despite their ability to advertise themselves.

In 293 AP, Estoro Condro died of a heart attack, leaving his deputy, Tavo Irigo, to take command. Irigo believed that unless the party was able to win a place in government, it would never achieve its goals, but realizing that the party was unlikely to have the restrictions on it lifted, he began looking for a way to circumvent them. He decided that were the Fascist Party to merge into a larger party, one which was more moderate, it would be able to have some say in the government, even if it had to compromise on some issues. This viewpoint was unpopular with many in the party, who considered it to be a betrayal of Fascist values, and the party lost much support. Irigo, however, pressed on. Speaking to the leaders of the Nationalist Party and the Patriotic Association, Irigo proposed the creation of a new organization to be known as the Loyalist Party, supposedly "to reflect the pride we feel in our country." The leader of the Nationalist Party, Mico Toranano, agreed with the idea under pressure from others in his party, but insisted that the alliance be made as wide as possible, meaning that the Militarist Party and the remnants of the Radical Party would also be included. Irigo was opposed to the idea of reuniting with these groups, but reluctantly agreed. The Loyalist Party was formed.

Initially, the Loyalist Party met with little success, even loosing some of the power held by the Nationalists prior to merger. It eventually stabilized as one of the more minor groups, but with a fairly strong base of supporters. When the Democracy Party was established, and the Empire began to collapse, the Loyalist Party worked against the reformists, declaring them "traitors".

Towards the end of 301 AP, however, tensions began to grow between the various components of the Loyalist Party. In particular, members of the former Patriotic Association felt that Mico Toranano, the former Nationalist leader who had become leader of the united organization, was "too moderate", and began to demand his replacement. Members of the old Militarist Party also voiced dissatisfaction. In the end, Tavo Irigo of the Fascist Party was the only major figure calling for the group to remain intact. When the Loyalist Party collapsed, with the Nationalists and the Patriots forming separate parties and the Militarists falling apart, Irigo decided that it would be in the best interests of Fascism to ally with none of the remnants, instead reasserting the Fascist Party as separate. Unlike under the Empire, however, the Fascist Party was not barred from contesting elections. Irigo led the Fascists into their first electoral challenge in half a century, although the party ended up only gaining one seat in the Senate. The Fascist Party maintains that "it's just the beginning".

In late of 303 AP, the Totalitarian Party's sole Senator, faced with diminishing membership and a severe lack of support, transferred his allegiance to the Fascist Party. That Senator, Edaro Muriso, became the Fascist Party's second representative in the Senate. The old Totalitarian Party collapsed soon afterwards, believing that it would be impossible to regain the Senate representation that Muriso's defection had cost it.

In the 304 AP elections, the party lost both its seats, and has not re-entered the Senate since.


List of Past Leaders

  • Jurio Tamando (238 - 251)
  • Simono Curovo (251 - 253)
  • Baluro Aramo (253 - 254)
  • Mercutio Algarto (254 - 262)
  • Carlo Heranto (262 - 263)
  • Estoro Condro (263 - 293)
  • Tavo Irigo (293 - 294)
  • [party not independent] (294 - 301)
  • Tavo Irigo (301 - )