Svobodna Dnevnik

[Hadash]

El Correo Internacional

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Khibland: President Michael Haydn faces political pressure
By: Albrekt Mogensen
Published: Marth 1583


Haydn has been President since 1577.

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Michael Haydn, the longest serving president of the Free State of Khibland in its short history, is finding himself in the middle of a political crisis.

Haydn, 56, was elected for first time president in 1571, only to be deposed in a military coup d'etat months later. In 1577, in the first presidential elections since democratic restoration, he won by a landslide, being reelected in 1581. He remains the leader of the Socialist Democratic Party, renamed as Social Democratic Party in 1576.

While he remains a relatively popular politician, the Social Democratic Party -which Haydn founded in the late 1560s, previously known as Socialist Democratic Party until 1576- is facing legal challenges. Already 1579, several SDP lawmakers were involved in a corruption case and were forced to resign, and last year Alred Brockhause, mayor of Macharaviaya and considered Haydn's likely successor in the party leadership, was arrested for similar corruption charges. Now, a few MPs are even discussing the prospect of the impeachment of the president.

Former political allies, the relation between President Michael Haydn and First Minister Primoz Destovnik has turned one of ongoing political infighting, and the relations between the President and the government are almost completely broken. This became evident in 1579, when Haydn forced Destovnik to resign, and a short-lived coalition government between Haydn's Social Democratic Party and centrist parties was formed. However, Destovnik's Progressive Democratic Party won the 1580 elections by a landslide, and Destovnik returned to power a year later.

In late 1579, the parliament passed a controversial constitutional reform, reducing the power of the presidency, which was passed by only one vote, after several MPs from the  populist Khiblander People's Democratic Party surprisingly decided to change their vote. Besides ideological and constitutional differences, one of the main political disputes between Haydn and the government in the signing of a military treaty between Khibland and the Republic of Mordvania, which Destovnik critics argue that it was not negotiated in a transparent way.

Haydn, however, according to local reports, seems confident that the political crisis will not become irreversible. There will be legislative elections in 1584 again, which are likely to be decisive to determine the political future of the small Avidnan territory.