Governor-General of Greater Hulstria

The Governor-General of Greater Hulstria, is the elected representative, directly voted by in the citizens, of the Head of State or Kaiser of the Imperial Crownlands of Greater Hulstria in national and legislative affairs. The position was created in April of 2647 under the reign of Rudolph V while keeping Hulstria a Monarchy by instead keeping the post as only as a representative of the Emperor, not the official ruler of the State. Governor-Generals are the political leaders of Hulstria and take part in lawmaking activities; they help set policy and usually have a cause set out to accomplish. They also work closly with the Head of Government, called the Staatsminister in Greater Hulstria, in policy making and overseeing Ministerial affairs.

The office of Governor-General has remained a royalist stronghold, no republicanist or communist candidate has ever won the position since its formation. Compared to the other Head of State reigns in the history of modern Greater Hulstria, let it be elected or hereditary, the Governor-General position has remained one of the longest, most undisturbed Head of State time periods in the nation since the Dual Monarchy which lasted for over 107 years.

As of 2719 there have been a total of 10 Governor-Generals since its formation in 2647 with Heinrich I presiding over all of them; however Rudolph V was Sovereign over Karl van Gessel for a few months until his assassination in August of the same year the Governor-General was created and Heinrich II became the Sovereign over Wolfgang Reinhardt after Heinrich I's death in 2717.

Development
The Governor-General was not the first attempt in the history of Greater Hulstria to have an elected Head of State or a representative-like post for the Monarch; the "Lord Protector of His Imperial Majesty's Government" was a position created after the formation of the 2nd Imperial Crownlands of Greater Hulstria by a royalist coalition led by the Imperial Hulstrian Party, thus restoring the Monarchy, and replacing the republican Hulstrian Union government in 2551. The Lord Protector had similar job functions as the present Governor-General but was looked upon as mainly ceremonial since the public during this time were more focused on the newly restored Monarch and Emperor rather than who was exactly Lord Protector. This was one of the several reasons or perhaps stepping stones in 2607 for a measure to replace Lord Protector office with the Emperor himself, Rudolph V at the time, leaving the whole of Head of State completely hereditary. It was agreed by the majority, if not all, of the political parties and citizens that the Monarch would better help stablize the country. The "Lord Protector of His Imperial Majesty's Government" only lasted for about 57 years and was mainly dominated by either the Progressive Liberal Party of Hulstria or the Imperial Hulstrian Party.

The Head of State of Greater Hulstria would remain hereditary for the early and mid 2600s; during that era under Rudolph V saw the resurgence of the republican Patriciate Coalition and other Gao-Showa republican parties however Hulstria had an overtly royalist atmosphere that blocked virtually any attempts by them to undermine the Kaiser. However by the year 2640 the idea of re-opening Hulstria's Head of State to political parties was being debated in the Imperial Diet, the national legislature. The country as a whole stablized through the years, rose in prominence in international affairs, and had seen great economic prosperity, making Greater Hulstria one of the main business centers on Dovani. Hulstria was looked upon as a great example of a modern Constituional Monarcy though that did not stop the debate; even though Hulstria was dominated by royalists, the majority of them agreed that something along the lines of a representative for the Monarchy, like the Lord Protector, would not only attract more political activity but in the end keep the Emperor as the Soverign or the main ruler/central authority in the nation. It pleasured both sides by bringing in more democracy but at the same time kept the Monarch in place and limiting republicanism.

= Early Beginning =

After years of deliberation and debate in the legislature, it was finally decided that the position of "Governor-General, elected representative of the Emperor of Hulstria" would be created, and was put to vote in 2645. The measure passed with a majority of 490 Diet members voting yes against 84 who voted no with 76 members of the Imperial Diet abstaining. Elections were set for 2647 and it would be first time in 40 years Hulstrians would cast their vote in Head of State elections. Many expected the elections to be very close and voting split since because Hulstria had over 8 active political parties so there was a possibility of several outcomes. Major contendors were Karl van Gessel, Spenzer Roderick, and Nicolaas van der Burgh, who all of them coincidently would become Governor-General later on. The follow up to the elections was fairly tense and the candidates of their respective parties campaigned diligently across the Crownlands trying to convince the citizens that were the bust suited to represent the Monarch (and Greater Hulstria) in affairs and each candidate had their own reason why; it was one of the most talked about and anticpated elections in recent times in Greater Hulstria. Karl van Gessel himself and his party, the Hulsterreich Sozialdemokratische Partei was one of the leading advocates of (successfully) creating the post of Governor-General while Spenzer Roderick instead successfully lead the resurgence of the Fascist Authority Party and Nicolaas van der Burgh revolutionized the Hulstrian Nationalist Party by extensive reforms within; all these parties had large representation in the Diet and were the main three contenders. In the end result in the elections of April, 2647, Karl van Gessel and Spenzer Roderick made it to the last round of voting only for Gessel to prevail becoming the first Governor-General of Greater Hulstria. Gessel had the largest winning percentage for Governor-General up until the year 2662, when elections were being held, where Nicolaas van der Burgh received over 61%.

Hulstria Goes to Gessel
Not much was known about Karl van Gessel until he became Governor-General; he was born in Kien and attended basic public schooling until he went to a University in Kien obtaining a degree in accounting. He did not enter politics right after graduating but worked as a public accountant in the Hulstrian capital and became weathly during his time there. It was only until he became interested (and then became a registered member) with the Hulsterreich Sozialdemokratische Partei when it was formed in 2634. Gessel became active in the political party and started to become their main finance consultant and eventually their candidate or party Minister of Finance of the HSP. He rose quickly and soon became the HSP chairman in Feburary 2644 when it went under substantial domestic reforms; Gessel had no huge political experience prior other than his Finance position, which members within questioned, but nonetheless he did gain a seat in the Imperial Diet shortly after he became chairman and become the forefront of the Governor-General creation debate. His calm demeanor, commonsense politics, and Kien-business backround made him popular with Gao-Showans and even Hulstrians, despite him being a chairman of a majority Gao-Showa political party and their voter base being so as well. Karl van Gessel in the first months in office portrayed what a Governor-General should be and set the tone of what it should do; he was bi-partisan, worked closely with the Staatsminister, regularly got involved in Imperial Diet sessions, and strayed away from international affairs. Even the Emperor himself (Rudolph V) praised Gessel and in August of 2647 invited Gessel to a massive banquet in Kien at the "Kaiserin Heleneplatz", right across from the Imperial Diet main building to formally install him as Governor-General and give a speech afterwards. Representatives from all the political parties were at the banquet, including Klemens von Flieder of the Imperial Hulstrian Party.

His first few months would bring positive light to his image but the events following would define his time as Governor-General; historians and political scientists agree that if the events that transpired next did not happen, Gessel could've had a bit more success during his reign.

Assassinations Rock Country
The public's "honeymoon" with the Governor-General would end with a bang, litterally. Up until August of 2647, Hulstrians embraced Gessel while at the same time praising the Monarch for allowing a post like the Governor-General to be created and the Emperor's popularity at that time was overwhemingly positive. Attendence at the banquet in Kien was expected to be high and several activities/celebrations were planned when Rudolph V was done with the formal installation and others were done with speeches although no such plans were ever carried out.

When Rudolph V was done with the formal installment of Karl van Gessel, he along with several royal family members/political delegates, von Flieder too who held a formal title, and Gessel himself, went on the steps of the "Kaiserin Heleneplatz" to give a speech honoring the new Governor General and praising his efforts in front of thousands who attended. Suddenly an assassins bullet rang out from a building opposing the Imperial Diet main offices and hit Rudolph solidly in his left shoulder immediately causing him to collapse to the ground. Seconds later a second shot was fired although missing the downed Emperor, instead hitting IHP chairman Klemens von Flieder, killing him instantly. The Imperial Guard without hesitating carried the wounded Emperor to his limousine to rush him to the Imperial Military Hospital in Kien while the building where the shots rang out were being stormed by other Guards. Gessel and other delegates with Rudolph at the time he was shot were unharmed; Karl van Gessel was obviously shaken entirely by the incidents and in a private journal discovered later on he wrote "it was one of the most terrifying days of my life". Efforts at the Imperial Military Hospital to get the rifle bullet from his shoulder was unsuccessful and died. Till this day, the assassins or possibly assassins were never caught; the killers of Rudolph and Klemens remain a mystery. There are suspicions about the House of Kennedy and the young New World Order having something do with it though nothing has been offcialy confirmed.

The assassination threw the Imperial Crownlands into mourning; many were in complete shock and disbelieve that the man they had come to admire was killed by a cowardly assassian. Every major political party at the time released statements of condolences and became united, royalist and republican, in smoothing threw the formal Succession from Rudolph to his son Heinrich I.

Focus of the national government and the Imperial Diet then was to keep the country sustainable after the assassinations; much of Karl van Gessels remaining years as Governor-General were overshadowed by these events and would ultimately define his years there. He remained private and was not as active in legislation as he used too. In 2650 Karl van Gessel was not re-elected to a second term and was defeated by one of his past opponents, Nicolaas van der Burgh. He did not even make it to the second round of voting for Governor-General, only receiving 18% of the total vote. A few months later when he was defeated, he died peacefully in his residence in Kien.

Karl van Gessel is mostly remembered for the events that happened during that August day in Kien that year in 2647 but the months before, he did set the tone for what a Governor-General should be and how it should act; many Governor-Generals followed his way of governing for a long time after he was gone.

= Transition to van der Burgh = Greater Hulstria's attention then turned to Nicolaas van der Burgh, the chairman of the Hulstrian Nationalist Party and former Finance Minister of Hulstria. Taking the HNP chairmanship in July of 2631, van der Burg was able to revolutionize his party by taking a new approach to political policy (reversing their long time far-right stance to a more moderate position) and preaching "progressive nationalism" in the Imperial Diet. The moves became popular with Greater Hulstrians and helped the HNP gain bigger representation in the 2630s and early 2640s. His popularity however did not show well in the 2647 national elections where the HNP lost over 18 seats and van der Burgh himself failing to go into second rounds of Governor-General voting; possible reason for the loss could have been because of the fact the HNP voted against the creation of the Governor-General while Gessel on the other did fully. It was a very different story in 2650; the nation was still in mourning, Karl van Gessel became politicaly inactive, and people were looking for different leaders. Though many believed that Spenzer Roderick, the Fascist Authority Party chairman, would pull off a win because of his success of his party's increasing influence in the nation and staunch activity, Nicolaas van der Burgh pulled a massive upset in 2650 beating Roderick by over 21 million more votes for Governor-General with 54% overall. His win was hailed by supporters as a huge victory and was labeled as a new turn for Hulstrian politics, many hoped that van der Burgh would ease the wounds created by the assassinations and become more of a politically active figure. Nicolaas van der Burgh was also expected to take on more of a workload as Governor-General; since Heinrich I, when he was conorated, took the thrones in over 3 nations, increasing the amount of work for van der Burgh when the newly crowned Emperor would travel elsewhere, and would have to keep the country together minus the Sovereign. Hulstrian society did not take offense to this new job description for the Governor-General since it did not border republicanism and because the Imperial Hulstrian Party, the Monarch's direct representation in the Imperial Diet, was still intact despite the loss of their chairman years eariler.

Historians suspect that his finacial backround, like Gessels, appealed to citizens, and his interest in economic measures plus his time in the Finance Ministry boosted his visibility. The only thing people had against Nicolaas van der Burgh was his opposition to the creation of Governor-General but as time went on and he began to accept the fact it was beneficial, people did not complain about it as much. He regularly attended economic summits in the country and was fairly involved in the media. His tenure as the Governor-General was to be marked by political instablity however, Hulstria's political scene soon after his win began to clash within breaking up into two factions called the "Right" and "Anti-Fascist" Coalitions. One coalition represented the big-government, unitarist right-wing conservatives while the other represented federalist, small government/devolutionist agendas, respectively.

Greater Hulstria Splits Into Two
The series of events that followed the Hulstrian Nationalist Party Governor-General victory can only be described as possibly one of the largest political battles in Hulstrian history that didn't involve republicans or communists. Greater Hulstria this time around did not split up into two Hulstria and Gishoto nor split up into communists/royalists but between two completely different types of conservative bases in the country who had their own vision about how the government and economy should be run. The "Right Coalition", headed by the Fascist Authority Party, preached central government empowerment and the "Anti-Fascist Coalition", headed by the Hulstrian Nationalist Party preached small government and limited, if none at all, regulation of the economy. Eventually through time that would become what the two coalitions would define themselves but those were not exactly the founding princples of these two political factions. Their creations date back to a year before van der Burgh was even elected.

During the 2640s the resurgent Fascist Authority Party, who just came from a 41 year absence period following the death of their founder, soon began to rake in several legislative victories in the Imperial Diet, and by 2644, only 3 years after their re-founding, became Hulstria's majority party. Spenzer Roderick, the party chairman, implemented several pieces of legislation focused on the empowerment of the central government, and attempting to create a balance in the levels of power in the national government. With support from the Triad Coalition and the Hulstrian Reactionary Party, the three parties were able to pass reforms relatively easily. Citizens began to give these parties larger representations in the Diet and with that gave other federalist parties smaller ones; van der Burgh did not take their successes too kindly at all. He felt that the policies inacted by those three political parties were dangerous and went against everything he stood for. van der Burgh was known to be a rabid devolutionist and free-market advocate, so seeing these big-government right wingers pass legislation made him cringe. His party and the FAP already exchanged bricks at eachother eariler in the decade and both had a history with eachother dating back to the 2590s. So what van der Burgh did was he conceived a new plan to reverse any further progress made by Roderick or his political allies by creating the "Anti-Fascist Coalition", a political faction consisting of all the liberal and/or federalist parties at the moment in Greater Hulstria to counter every single piece of legislation proposed by opposition. The AFC would then pass a national cabinet coalition excluding the FAP, the TC, and the HRP furthering their powerhold on the nation's domestic policy. In response to the creation of the AFC, the FAP and the Traid Coalition creating the "Right Coalition" composed of all the parties on the right-wing spectrum of Hulstria.