Septimus von Drakan

&nbsp Septimus von Drakan was the longest-serving leader of the Coburan Labour Party. Despite this, he never became Prime Minister or President of Cobura.

3177-3207: Early Life
Septimus von Drakan was born in 3177, in Hudson, the capital of Cobura. His father was a member of the Democratic Party of Cobura, and his mother was a local, independent representative in the City Council. Drakan had an average grade of D in junior high school, and his best grade was in social studies, with an average of B+. This later improved, however, and he was able to enter the University of Irkawa in 3196, where he studied sociology. He finished his time at the university in 3203, and soon joined the Centre Party as a youth politician.

Party Memberships
Drakan remained a political activist for the Centre Party of Cobura until 3206, when Centre voted no on a bill proposed by the People's Party Party in order to improve the labour union situation in the country. In February that year, Drakan joined a group of young workers seeking to bring the voice of the workers into the highest political forum of Cobura, the National Assembly. In 3207 Drakan and his fellow activists managed to found a political party, called the Green Labour Party (GLP). Two of his friends worth noticing are Gordon Green and Jonas Storne, both socialists. The GLP didn't get representation in the National Assembly before two elections later, in 3216. This was in itself a proof of how many workers needed a party to represent them.

At the time there were only three parties (four with the GLP), the Democratic Party, the People's Party Party, and the Centre Party, none of whom were socialist or even social democratic. The GLP was an eco-socialist party, focusing strongly on environmental issues, in addition to progressivism and socialism. In 3208 the party changed its name to the Democratic Labour Party as it moved further towards the left, strongly influenced by Drakan himself.

3207-3217: Labour Leader
Drakan would continue to push the party towards the left until 3209, when his uncle was killed by a group of anarchists. At that point, he decided to discuss the party's future and relations with its administration, headed by Gordon Green next to Drakan himself. They agreed to stay near the political centre, at the same time allying with the Centre Party. After a few years of defining the party's ideology, they decided to rename the party again, this time to the Social Democratic Party. At the general election of 3216 the Social Democratic Party gained five seats in the National Assembly. This was largely due to Drakan's increasing popularity with the public. He was portrayed by most people as a fair, benevolent, incorruptible leader, and his image would remain this way for years. At this point, Drakan had been party leader for ten years, and according to the party's constitution he had to resign. The next leader was Gordon Green, his old friend and right hand. He was party leader from 3217 to 3220, and under him the party gained eighty-one seats. After that, Green had to resign due to illness, and Drakan won the election for the party leadership. In this period, the party's and his own public image lost popularity due to problems with his family, that were published in gossip magazines. It remained this way until the next election of 3228.

3217-3230: Negotiations
Briefly Cobura had been a one-party system under Democratic Party rule, but now parties arrived in and fell out of the National Assembly nearly every election. However, the Labour Party stood firm like a cliff in the sea of politics and parties. At this point, another leftist party had been re-founded, the Social Congress of Cobura. The Labour Party hadn't been part of a cabinet since 3219, in three terms as a minor coalition member, and it wouldn't rule Cobura again, as it had now defined itself as a left-wing party, with two centrist parties, one right-wing and two left-wing. In a situation where two centre parties are allied to each other, and one of them are allied to the right-wing party, it's hard for the two remaining ones to get in power. In an attempt to stay in power, Drakan in 3218 founded the Coburan Leftist Congress, in order to secure co-operation between the leftist parties. The Progressive Liberty Party, Social Congress, and briefly the First Democratic Labour Party all joined the alliance. Despite this, they didn't manage to get in power, not even in a coalition government. The Labour administration was frustrated, and did everything they could in order to get in a better position in parliament, because all the leftist parties that gained seats in the Assembly usually fell below the border line the next election or so. The only party left was the Social Congress, who in return had made a strong alliance with Labour. In 3228, after extreme amounts of advertising from Drakan's side, Labour gained 108 seats in the Assembly, after the disappointment of 3224.

3230-3242: Last Days
From 3230 to 3240 Drakan managed to get the party back on top, with over one hundred seats in two out of three elections. He was more popular than ever, and he gained attention internationally, and he and his party became top members of the Socialist International, in addition to becoming the largest left-wing party of Cobura. In the general election of 3240, Labour made its best election ever, with 21.32% of the votes, and 141 seats in the National Assembly. Convinced he was now able to form a centre-left cabinet, he proposed several cabinet proposals to the Assembly, each and every one of them failing. This resulted in his resignation as labour leader after several dramatic incidents, discussions and debates among the Labour partisans and the different party leaders. A new Labour leader was to be elected after two decades of a Drakan-dominated Labour administration. The new leader was Miranda Monaco, a distant relative and close friend of Drakan. This new leader, however, turned the party into a catastrophe of an impossible combination of socialist/capitalist party. The Labour Party was now a de facto right-wing party with the goal to eliminate taxes and progressivism. This left the Social Congress as the only leftist party in Cobura. The so-called 'Monaco-regime' ended in October the next year, when the party administration ordered her resignation. It was reformed into the Socialist Labour Party, and under the party leader election, Drakan ran for president, but ended up in third place, after Emily Taylor-Schmidt and Mark Nicholson, first and second respectively. He got 31% of the votes from all party members, and when he was offered the position of Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs in the main opposition, he declined, as he had now realised he was far too old to be a politician, and he was in fact seventy-eight years old, and the oldest Congressman ever to have lived in Cobura. The Labour Party was now split into several smaller ones, many of whom later united as The Left, the dominating left-wing party of Cobura.

Retirement
Septimus von Drakan is currently seventy-nine, and it is unknown whether or not he will be alive under a Left Prime Minister, yet that is one of his old partisan friends' goal: to make sure he experiences his party as the major party of Cobura. He was indeed the founding father of the Labour Party, and he played an important role in the Coburan labour uprising of 3205-3207.