The Borneo Star // News and Happenings

[Hereno]

[Live Broadcast on BSPAN]

"Well !@#$, that was unexpected."

Giorgio was shocked by the sudden abandonment of the entire island of Borneo to the fledgling republic. Even moreso by the military protection afforded by the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

"I hope they're not intending to incorporate us into them, but it's nice to know that no blood will be shed. Even moreso that we have, for the moment, an ally of sorts."

He smirked unsatisfactorily.

"You can sit, already."

The Bornean Parliament was clearly on its first day of duty. The Parliamentarians exchanged questions silently with their eyes, before sitting in their places. Work would be much like this in the foreseeable future; later that day, the Prime Minister would be elected as the state's first Dictator, to serve a shortened term of six months in order to get the country in order. Drawing heavily from Roman sources, the mix of autocracy and democracy was a sensible introductory phase to the concept for a people who had never been given serious, real ability to govern themselves.

...A long, monotonous address began...

....It would seem like forever....

.....By the end, nobody cared.....

And then the new Prime Minister slammed his fist against the podium, waking his audience with a shock.

"It is time to vote on the bill. I hope you've been paying attention, because the future of our country is at stake."
 

Hardly anybody actually knew what was up for vote, and that was the Prime Minister's intention. They would all shrug their shoulders, eager to pretend as though they had actually been awake, but none of them realizing that they had all fallen asleep. Finally, someone made a move, and one of the left-wing politicians voted "yes" on the issue. This prompted a wave of "no" votes from right-wing politicians, which were then countered by left-wing eavesdroppers. The wave rippled across the entire legislature before the results came in. About 2/3 of the votes had been in favor, authorizing the creation of a multi-branch volunteer military force, granting diplomatic recognition to several important neighboring states, and providing a small sum of money to the tune of several million dollars for the Prime Minister to start up an enterprise in league with the new state-owned-and-operated Borneo Pharmaceuticals.

However, nobody really gave a !@#$. Things were generally going pretty well, and most people would never be affected by any of this anyway. Still, for the politicians, the effort was worth it. They were generally sensible and so wouldn't screw things up anyway, and in return for not abusing their power too much, they were accepted as legitimate by their constituent population. So long as the economy continued growing and homelessness remained a thing of the past, there was no real motivation to change things.

And so the Parliament went home to go to get high and have sex with expensive escorts of multiple genders, religions, and sexual orientations.
 

A production of the state-owned and operated Borneo Star Public Affairs Network
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Edited September 19, 2014 by Hereno