Chapter 54 - Politics

After Asad left the room, Zulqarnain turned to Ashhad and said

Zulqarnain : a democratic revolution takes place in three phases, phase 1 is called the confirmation, where a list is made containing the names of the political parties taking place in the election as well as the names of the party leaders, in order for a party to be added to the list it must have atleast 6 members.

Ashhad : Ok.

Zulqarnain : phase 2 is called the speech and as the name suggest the leaders of each political party deliver a speech to influence the people to vote for them.

Ashhad : that's fantastic.

Zulqarnain : phase 1 and 2 take place on the same day, with phase 1 taking place during day time and phase 2 during the night.

Ashhad : and what about the elections, when do they take place?

Zulqarnain : phase 3 or the elections take place 1 day after phase 1 and 2, basically what happens is that for 1 whole day ballot boxes appear all across the nation and once the day is over they dissappear and a central ballot box appears outside the royal palace, in it are the results of the elections.

Humzah : has something like this ever happened before in Ortania?

Zulqarnain : no, this is going to be the first democratic revolution in the history of Ortania.

Nizaam : back in the real world elections were always rigged and democracy never prevailed, I hope that's not the case here.

Zulqarnain : vote fraud cannot happen in the virtual world but mishaps such as fights between voters or political leaders is very much possible, not to mention the threat of political assassinations.

Ashhad : hopefully nothing like that will happen.

Zulqarnain : we can only pray that elections will go smoothly without any violence.

Ashhad gulped as Asad returned to the throne room seeing him Kainaat asked

Kainaat : so Asad, did you make any preparations?

Asad : no but I thought about it with a cool mind and then I realized I was wrong, elections should happen, I was just overacting based on my ideology.

Ashhad : I'm glad that we're on the same page now.

Zulqarnain : now all that's left is to decide a name for our political party as well as preparing a speech for Ashhad.

Ashhad : just thinking about it causes me to get stressed.

Asad : don't be, giving a speech is a piece of cake and besides a political speech is the easiest thing to do, all you have to do is lie and make fake promises then you'll see just how quickly everyone will begin to love you.

Ashhad : it can't be that easy.

Zulqarnain : it will be, now come on let's go and see how the other parties are doing, I'm sure they're all ready for the confirmation after all this is the first time a democratic revolution is taking place in Ortania.

with that said all the friends went outside where as expected many parties had gathered for the confirmation, after some discussion here and there as well as the merger of several 1 or 2 member parties the total number of parties taking place in the election came down to 7, finally after a long discussion the friends agreed on naming their party People's Revolutionary Ortania or PRO for short, the final list included the following parties :-

1) Secular Ortania Movement (SOM) which was Mike Morrisons party hoping to achieve a democratic and secular Ortania.

2) Fascist Party of Ortania (FPO) which wanted to establish a dictatorship in Ortania.

3) Autocratic Ortanian Front (AOF) which wanted to turn Ortania into an autocratic nation.

4) Communist League of Ortania (CLO) which wanted to turn Ortania communist.

5) Ortanian Women Alliance (OWA) which wanted to turn Ortania into a nation led only by woman.

6) People's Revolutionary Ortania (PRO) which was Ashhad's party.

7) Anarchist Party of Ortania (APO) which as its name suggest wanted to turn Ortania into an Anarchist state.

of the 7 parties the two most prominent ones were Secular Ortania Movement and People's Revolutionary Ortania so in order to secure his victory in the elections Ashhad began preparing for the second phase the speech, with all the words of the English vocabulary at his disposal, Ashhad compiled all the problems faced by Ortania as well as their solution into a wonderful speech finally, as it began to turn dark, the people of Stevenburg were all gathered near a make shift stage where the speeches would be delivered, the FPO, AOF, CLO and APO didn't prepare a speech as their goals were already clear in their names, the OWA gave a generic feminist speech hoping to gain support from the females of Ortania, it didn't work, many people either fell asleep or left during the OWA speech, then came Ashhad's turn, at first he was hesitant but then his friends also entered the crowd and began cheering him with placards, this motivated Ashhad to deliver a wonderful speech and to further bolster Ashhad's popularity the friends began to hand out propaganda pamphlets to the crowd telling them how Ashhad defeated the tyrannical Sufiyan and dreams of turning Ortania into a futuristic dystopia, at the end of Ashhad's speech, the people applauded him and it seemed as if Ashhad had this in the bag but, now it was Mike Morrisons turn, as Mike got on the stage he cleared his throat and began his speech

Mike : greetings ladies and gentlemen, I promise to not take to much of your time but, first I would like to appreciate the speeches delivered by the other leaders who are partaking in this.

Ashhad and his friends were all observing Mike as he continued to speak

Mike : I was born in a pretty poor family, my mom, dad and siblings including me worked tirelessly, we never went to school cause we didn't had enough money, my parents would often be gone for days, doing extremely hard labor for very low wages, life was hard but it was OK, I may have lived in a house without a roof and broken walls and wore clothes with holes in them but I was satisfied until my father died, his death created a major economic problem for our family, my mother began selling the things in our house to make both ends meet but that wasn't enough finally when everything had been sold my mom .....

Mike became quiet as he took a deep breath and said

Mike : my mom sold her dignity.

this sentence left everyone in the crowd feeling pitiful for Mike as Mike continued his speech

Mike : life wasn't fair with me but I won't let this Kingdom and its people be deprived of their basic rights I promise to make Ortania great again, I'm not begging anyone, if you want to vote me than thankyou, if not than it's totally fine.

Mike's confidence impressed everyone in the audience except Asad as Mike continued saying

Mike : and as for my final words I would like to remind you all that the people who have seen winter through windows, poverty in dramas and the sun from a shade can never understand the hardships of a citizen, thankyou.

just as Mike's speech ended a roar of claps erupted in the crowd along with several whistles, Mike's speech had influenced many citizens and Ashhad was now starting to worry about his victory, after returning back to the royal palace the friends were so tired that they all immediately went to bed.