Ostaran Times

[Hadash]

Ostaran Times

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Former Empress to contest legislative election as candidate
By: Muong Quang Viên
Published: Elva, 1603


Lâm Thi Hông will be a candidate in a district nearby Nam Dinh, although outside Nam Dinh metropolitan area.

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In a surprising move, Lâm Thi Hông, the last monarch of the Imperial Kingdom of Hôinôm, has announced that she will be a candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party in the coming legislative election.

For first time in Hôinôm's history, a member of the royal family will become directly involved in politics and runs for office.

Lâm Thi Hông was Empress of Hôinôm from 1568 until 1599, when she abdicated from the throne. Two months later, the Republic of Hôinôm was established.


Background

The former empress announcement comes in a complicated moment in the Southern Ostaran nation, following the collapse of Quân Công Trai's government a few months ago.

Quân Công Trai, the leader of the Nationalist Democratic Party, had been Hoinomese Prime Minister since 1596. In 1599, he was reelected with a clear majority. He had campaigned for the establishment of a democratic constitution, and national reconciliation, aimed to unifying the country with Quang Cai's revolutionary government -officially known as the People's Democratic Republic of Hôinôm- through peaceful negotations. The negotiations consolidated following Quân Công Trai's reelection, and Empress Hông surprisingly announced her abdication in late 1599, declaring that she did not aim to "be an obstacle for our nation's national reconciliation". Although a peace agreement was signed between Quân Công Trai's government and representatives of the People's Democratic Republic of Hôinôm, the negotiations collapsed seven months later.

On Dein this year, Quân Công Trai's government collapsed after his government lost the support of President Kim Công Dùc's Democratic Party. Close political allies since 1596, the relation between Prime Minister Quân and President Kim was reportedly being deteriorated in recent years. Kim Công Dùc joined Quân Công Trai's government and he was Minister of Justice from 1596 to 1599. Following the Empress abdication, Kim Công Dùc was appointed a member of the provisional executive council that took temporarily the functions of collective head of state, only to be appointed as head of state when the Republic of Hôinôm was established in 1600. The new constitution, however, established a presidency which was left mostly with symbolic powers, and many felt that Prime Minister Quân Công Trai was marginalizing President Kim Công Dúc and the Democratic Party while increasing his own power and his political appointees.

After losing the legislative support of the Democratic Party, Prime Minister Quán Công Trai lost a vote of confidence and President Kim Công Dùc dissolved the parliament and announced new legislative elections. Prime Minister Quân Công Trai was replaced by Tô Dùc Thuân, who served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1597 to 1600. However, his minority government has failed to convince both the opposition and voters, and Tô Dúc Thuân rejected President Kim Công Dùc's offer to be a Democratic Party candidate for the next legislative election.

Quân Công Trai has announced that he will be Nationalist Democratic Party's candidate for Prime Minister for third time, and he's currently leading the polls. However, the insufficient economic growth in the last years, minor cases of corruption in his own party, and more specially, the failure of negotiations with the People's Democratic Republic of Hôinôm has caused a blow in his popularity -he approval rating is currently below 20%- and his party is predicted to obtain twelve points less than in 1599.

However, with the opposition divided in several conservative, center-right, and centrist parties, there is not a clear alternative. President Kim Công Dùc's Democratic Party is barely polling at 7-11%, and it has still to designate an official candidate for Prime Minister.


Controversy

Lâm Thi Hông's announcement was received with mixed reactions. Her 31-year reign -the longest since the restoration of the monarchy in 1520- was marked by reforms and setbacks - including a violent civil war that still divides the country. However, even at the moment of her abdication in 1599, support of the monarchy remained beyond the 50% - the Republic of Hôinôm was proclaimed by a majority of the parliament without a referendum, after Prince Cào, Empress Hông's elder son announced his renounce to his mother's throne.

The Deputy Chairman of the Nationalist Democratic Party has announced that their parliamentary group will ask both the Election Commission and the Constitutional Court to reject the former Empress candidacy, as they see the candidacy of a former monarch as a violation of the constitutional order. Officially, although the country adopted a republican constitution, the Royal House still legally exists, although it stopped to receive funds from the budget in 1601.

Lâm Thi Hông's choice to be a candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party came as a surprise even to those who aspire to restore the monarchy in Hôinôm. The Liberal Democratic Party, a centrist political party, was established in 1598 by a group of MPs from Kim Công Dùc's Democratic Party. Most of their representatives abstained in the parliamentary vote that proclaimed the republic -they proposed a referendum on the monarchy instead- but, unlike the conservative and monarchist parties, voted for the 1601 constitution.

Defending her choice to be a candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party, Lâm Thi Hông declared that she does "not aim to the restoration of the monarchy, but to serve my fellow citizens in a new role" as member of the parliament. "I have relinquished my royal titles and lived as a commoner in the last years", she announced in a social media message. "I have accepted the Liberal Democratic Party's nomination as  candidate to exercise my rights and freedom without any privileges above other fellow Hoinomese citizens under the constitution".

The Liberal Democratic Party does not expect to include in its own platform any mention of the monarchy. However, not everyone in the party are happy about the former Empress joining them. At least seven memebers of the Liberal Democratic Party national executive are expected to resign as consequence.



What's next?

It is unclear which effects will have the participation of former Empress Hông in the coming legislative election, and which role she is expected to have in the next parliament.

"This has never happened before in Hoinomese politics", Lâ Vân Quân, a political scientist from Hôi Lùyên National University, has told Ostaran Times. "The royal family has always been very powerful in Hôinôm. It was historically seen as the arbitrer of the nation. Since 1596 until her abdication, the Empress seemed to have accepted a more symbolic and constitutional role. But it is unprecedented that a member of the royal family, a former monarch, participating in partisan politics and legislative activity".

"It is very difficult to predict if she will be successful or not", says Dào Thành An, a political analyst from Nam Dinh. "But if even that was the case, I believe that it rather makes more difficult the restoration of the monarchy than it was before".