Tigris Republic

Mashriq Democratic Republic
Flag of the MDR
General
Official Name	Mashriq Democratic Republic
Capital	Tikrit
Largest City	Tikrit
National Abstract
Claim Link
Government
Government Type	Military Junta
Head of State	President Talib Abdul Nasser
Legislature	Republican Council (six high-ranking military officials, the director of the DFI, and the President)
Head of Government	President Talib Abdul Nasser
Judiciary	various military courts
Demographics
Demonym	Mashriqi
Population	6 million (about)
Official Language(s)	Iraqi Arabic, Kurdish
Spoken Language(s)	Iraqi Arabic, Kurdish, Arabic-English Creole
Ethnic Groups	Arab (55%); Kurdish (30%); Amerite (10%); other
Official Religion	No state religion
Major Religions	Sunni Muslim (70%), Shia Muslim (15%), Western Christian (10%)

The Mashriq Democratic Republic is a military dictatorship on the coast of the Gulf of Babylon. Most of the MDR's territory was formerly held by Iraq and Syria before the flood. The state sees itself as the successor to the ancient empires of the Fertile Crescent and seeks to reunite the lands therein. Before communist uprisings in 2154, the state was a federal presidential republic.

History

During the Flood (pre-2038)

As the Persian Gulf rose, it engulfed the most populated areas of Iraq. Refugees, mostly Sunni Arabs and American expatriates, traveled up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, periodically stopping at surviving cities along them, to escape the rising sea. Most Shia Arab refugees fled toward the highlands of southwestern Iran, resulting in the Republic's present religious makeup.

When the sea level stabilized in the late 2030's, Tikrit had become a coastal city on the new Gulf of Babylon and the center of political and cultural unrest against the old order. Tensions would continue to rise until full scale civil war broke out in 2038.

The Civil War Period (2038 to 2056)

From 2038 to 2056, various organizations controlled Tikrit and the surrounding areas, but none for very long. Cultural, religious and political wars over control of the city broke out nearly every month, forcing some refugees to flee further north to the cities of Kirkuk, Erbil and Mosul. Destabilized by a lack of resources, these cities too fell into civil wars. By 2055, the Mesopotamian Unification League began printing material calling for the cessation of conflicts and meetings between the leadership of the principal factions in the region.

The Unification Conventions began slowly as factional disputes often devolved into outbreaks of conflict, but by 2056 the last shots of the Civil War Period had been fired.

The Unification Period (2056 to 2087)

The Unification Conventions evolved from peace talks between the major regional factions into something more akin to the early American Constitutional Conventions, where issues of how the region would be governed would be discussed. Chief among the issues addressed was the shape of government in the fledgling Tigrisi nation. Before the founding of the First Republic, most people in the region had strong localistic tendencies, identifying more as citizens of one of the major city-states in the region rather than as citizens of a larger nation in the region. The pre-Republican period from 2056 to 2068 was marked by an ever-shifting political landscape in the Tigris river valley, with different factions taking control each year without major conflict. In 2068 a coalition of these factions, led by the Pan-Mesopotamian League (PML), ratified the first Constitution of the Tigris Republic, marking the beginning of the First Republic.

The PML controlled Tigrisi politics during the First Republic until 2087. In the preceding decade, the style of government of most PML leaders became unsuited to a nation which had already been, in the eyes of its people, unified and so the people became disillusioned with Pan-Mesopotamian ideals. The election of many anti-federalist politicians in this new landscape would lead to the Confederation Period, when the highest levels of government would be weakened to almost the point of dissolution.

The Second Republic (2104 to 2119)

The beginning of the Second Republic is marked by the election of President Adbul Nasser. Nasser was previously a Councillor for the Mashriq National Party, which rose to prominence in the Confederation Period by promising an end to "the chaos brought about by a crippled central government". With the backing of an MNP controlled Council, President Nasser signed into law numerous acts strengthening the ability of the federal government over the states, and promised a "glorious dominion over the lands between the seas". Nasser's politics were marked by radical expansionism at the cost of all else. In the shadow of the charismatic President, the MNP fractured into the hard-line party of the same name, the more moderate Republican Party and the more global affairs-focused Internationalist Party, with these three then-allies controlling over 70% of the Republican Council.

The Nasser Dictatorship (2119 to 2121)

In 2119, President Abdul Nasser was elected to an unprecedented and unconstitutional fourth term in office. The following two years were consumed by civil war and interparty chaos. The tenuous alliance between the MNP, the Republicans and the Internationalists broke as the former saw Nasser as a legitimate president while the latter two saw him as a usurper of the title from their candidates. While the Republicans, being more localist and right-wing like the MNP before them, were more inclined to let the issue be dropped, the Internationalist party, in an alliance with several key military leaders, pushed for a coup against Nasser. The effort succeeded, resulting in the MNP being barred from involvement in federal politics and the deaths of President Nasser and several of his close family. The late President was tried in absentia, and found guilty of "crimes against the Republic and its people", though the exact natures of these crimes were never explicitly stated. MNP sympathizers to this day consider the posthumous trial a farce. In 2121, the first election of the Third Republic was held.

Demographics

Affiliation	% of population
Muslim	85	85
Unitarian	50	50
Sunni	25	25
Shia	10	10
Christian	12	12
Protestant	7	7
Catholic	3	3
Assyrian	2	2
Jewish	1	1
Other faiths	1	1
Irreligious	1	1
Total	100	100

Ethnicity

The vast majority of the population of the MDR is either of Arabic or Kurdish ancestry, with 55% and 30% of the population in each group, respectively. The remaining 15% is split between the descendants of American expatriates living in the old nation of Iraq (known as the Amerites, about 10% of the total population), Assyrians, Turkmen and smaller minorities. The proportion of Kurds in the MDR is higher than the proportion in its predecessor due primarily to the Flood, which displaced most Arab communities in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.

Religion

Approximately 85% of Mashriqis are Muslim, with 50% of the population being Unitarian Muslim, 25% being Sunni and 15% being Shia. The sectarian breakdown is roughly the reverse of those in the MDR's predecessors due, again, to the Flood displacing southern Iraqis toward the hills of southwest Persia.

Most Amerites retain religious traditions held by their Western ancestors and are almost entirely Christian. In total, about 7% of Mashriqis are Protestant, 3% are Roman Catholic and 2% are Assyrian Christian.

There are small pockets of the Jewish faith and others throughout the MDR, and about 1% of Mashriqis are irreligious. While rural Mashriqis consider religion to be more important to their daily life than urban Mashriqis, all sections of the population consider religion to be an important measure of a person's character and there is a non-institutional stigma against atheists in the Republic.

Government and Politics

The Tigris Republic

Seat distribution on the old Republican Council:

  Internationalist: 105 seats

  Republican: 83 seats

  Green: 67 seats

  Mashriq National: 48 seats

  Centrist: 30 seats

  Socialist: 10 seats

  Kurdistan Unity: 4 seats

  Reform and Liberty: 3 seats

The Tigris Republic was a federal semi-presidential republic largely modeled after the old United States. The federal government is composed of three branches:

• Legislative: the unicameral Republican Council makes federal law, issues declarations of war, approves treaties, issues federal budgets, and may remove sitting members of the government by impeachment.

• Executive: the President is elected under a direct instant-runoff voting system. Current or former military officers are explicitly barred from holding the office of President. The President is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to legislative override), appoints the Chief Councillor, cabinet ministers and other officers (subject to legislative approval), who administer and enforce federal laws and policies. The Chief Councillor, who is a member of the Republican Council also exercises executive power in that they can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to legislative override) and appoint federal judges (subject to legislative approval).

• Judicial: the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Chief Councillor with the approval of the Republican Council, interprets laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

Both the President and members of the Republican Council serve five year terms and may be elected to their offices no more than three times. Members of the Republican Council are elected indirectly by a party-list proportional representation system. The President is directly elected by an instant-runoff voting system. The Supreme Court has seven members who serve ten year terms without term limits.

States in the Republic tend to have governments structured in a similar fashion, often with directly elected legislatures comprised of local representatives.

The Constitution of the Republic establishes most of the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship to the states. Individual rights are protected in the original text of the Constitution, and there are procedures in place to modify, or amend, the Constitution. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled by the courts to be in violation of the Constitution is voided.

The States

The Tigris Republic is comprised of several states with their own executive, legislatures and courts, all of which are subject to federal laws and have special rights and privileges granted to them by the Constitution of the Republic

Political Parties

The Tigris Republic has a strong multi-party system, with Councillors of multiple parties forming coalitions for the purposes of governing. Typically, no single party holds a majority of seats in the Council by itself. At the time of writing the four largest political parties in the Tigris Republic are:

• The Republicans: center-right, localist, Pan-Mesopotamian

• The Internationalists: center-left, progressive, globalist, Pan-Mesopotamian

• The Greens: left, green, democratic socialist

• The Centrists: radical centrism

One political party, the Mashriq National Party, was barred from operating in the Republic due to its involvement in the Nasser Dictatorship. The MNP has a vocal minority base in the Republic and often stages demonstrations calling for the unification of the region under a single nation. Both the Internationalists and Republican parties court members of the banned party with their Pan-Mesopotamian platforms, but neither go as far as the MNP in claims to Palestine or Northern Arabia. The ban on MNP political operations was lifted in late 2152.

The Mashriq Democratic Republic

After the suspension of the Constitution of the Republic in July 2154, the Republican Council of the Tigris Republic was replaced by a different Republican Council. The new council consists of the three Generals of the Republican Army, the Admiral of the Republican Navy, the two Generals of the Republican Air Force, the Director of the Department of Foreign Intelligence and the President of the Republic.

The President may veto any measure passed by the Council. Each member of the current Council, besides the Director of the DFI, was selected by the old Republican Council during the Anatolian War to serve as the commander of a portion of their branch, second in command only to the President, who is Commander in Chief. The DFI Director was appointed by the President, and confirmed by the old Republican Council after the creation of the Department.