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The Second HoS List Challenge

The Second HoS List Challenge

  • Catalunya (Italy in exile)

    Votes: 6 35.3%
  • Bonniecanuck (Phillipines)

    Votes: 8 47.1%
  • Aznavour (Mafia)

    Votes: 6 35.3%
  • SenatorChickpea (Oceania)

    Votes: 4 23.5%

  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .

Venocara

God Save the King.
Pronouns
He/him
Welcome everyone to the Second HoS List Challenge!

How it works is simple: every month there will be a theme, and the challenge is to write an alternate Head of State list (with an accompanying description of no less than 200 words) based on that theme. The theme is intended to be a prompt, and as such the amount of focus you give to the theme can vary as much as you wish. Cabinet lists are also acceptable. All HoS/Cabinet lists should be plausible. Unless stated otherwise, the list can be for any country.

The theme for this month is “The Wind of Change”.

As you will all know the phrase used for this month's theme comes from a speech that Harold Macmillan made on a tour of Africa in 1960 in which he foreshadowed the acceleration of Britain's decolonisation process. In my opinion, decolonisation is a topic that doesn't get the attention it deserves in alternate history, and so this is a good opportunity to rectify that. Of course, the phrase is vague enough to mean anything...

For this challenge, any PODs used for the list should not take place earlier than the 11th November 1918.

Entries should be posted in this thread and you can submit as many entries as you please but only the first will be considered to be competitive. At the end of the month a public vote will be held to decide on a winning list. Entries are open with immediate effect, and will close on the 19th October.

Any questions, comments or suggestions are welcome either in this thread or sent to me by PM.

Good luck everyone!
 
Excellent topic. One question- did you copy the POD date from the last thread, or are we still doing the Versailles jump off?

I mean, it makes sense given the colonial possibilities of the starting point, but I just thought I'd check.
 
EDIT: My POD is somewhere in the 1920s. Hope that it won’t be too big of a problem.

“60 years ago we drove the fascists into the sea with the aid of our German comrades. Today I promise you that we will aid every single Italian and Arab worker across the Mediterranean in the fight against the illegitimate regime of the Fascist Party. Neither the Imperialists in London and Oran, nor the Counterrevolutionaries in Moscow can stop the Marxist Mare Nostrum. As our comrade Gramsci predicted the old world is finally dying, and now the new world struggles to be born.”

- General Secretary of the Italian Workers’ Republic Maurizio Landini



Prime-Ministers of the Kingdom of Italy (Libya and Italian Ethopia 1944-1972, Libya 1972-2011):

1944 - 1947: Benito Mussolini (Partito Nazionale Fascista)
1947 - 1971: Galeazzo Ciano (Partito Nazionale Fascista)
1971 - 1986: Giuseppe Romualdi (Partito Nazionale Fascista)
1986 - 1997: Romano Mussolini (Partito Nazionale Fascista)

1997 - 2011: Silvio Berlusconi (Partito Nazionale Fascista)

Chairmen of the Libyan Workers’ Republic:

2011 - 2013: Giovanni Martinelli (Lavoratori Parti) and Khalifa Haftar (حزب العمال)
2013 - 2016: Giovanni Martinelli (Lavoratori Parti) and Mustafa Zaidi (حزب العمال)


2017 - 2022: Disputed between; Libyan Workers’ Republic, Libyan Socialist Democratic Republic and Islamic Republic of al-Maghrib
 
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The Difference in One Character

"The difference between Tokyo (東京) and Nanjing (南京) is in one character." - Unknown

Governors-General of the Philippines (Insular Government of the Philippine Islands)

1921-1927: Leonard Wood†
1927-1927: Eugene Allen Gilmore (Acting)
1927-1933: Henry L. Stimson
1933-1936: Blanton Winship


Presidents of the Second Philippine Republic:

1936-1938: Emilio Aguinaldo (Independent)
1938-1939: Artemio Ricarte (Independent)
1939-1939: Benigno Ramos (Ganap)


Presidents of the Third Philippine Republic:

1939-1960: Benigno Ramos (KALIBAPI [Association for Service to the New Philippines])
1960-1967: José S. Laurel III (KALIBAPI)


Presidents of the Fourth Philippine Republic:

1967-1989: Ferdinand Marcos (Kilusang Bagong Lipunan [New Society Movement])
1989-1994: Bongbong Marcos (KBL)
1994-1998: Fabian Ver (KBL)
1998-2012: Benjamin Romualdez (KBL)
2012-present: Imee Marcos (KBL)



The POD is based off a comment Herbert Hoover made that if he had met Charles Francis Adams III, whom he had appointed Secretary of the Navy, earlier, he would have made him Secretary of State instead. So Stimson stays in the Philippines, continuing to hamper Philippine efforts towards independence despite a decent relationship with Manuel Quezon. His replacement, Winship, is sent to the Philippines rather than Puerto Rico by the Democratic administration, which...yeah.

Tensions and repression, and Quezon and Sergio Osmeña's failure to assuage the general public, drives support for the pro-Japanese Lapiang Sakdal movement of Benigno Ramos, culminating in a violent overthrow of the American colonial administration. Lack of enthusiasm in America and Japanese intervention prevents a Second Philippine-American War, but despite efforts to assert independence, the Japanese effectively usurp the Americans as their overlords, with their mouthpieces being Ramos and former revolutionary general Artemio Ricarte.

A typhoon settles over the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the winds gusting in one direction.

Gradually Ramos ousts Ricarte and, with Japanese guidance, transforms the Philippines much like how the OTL puppet state was created. A delayed Pacific War allows the total reorganisation of the Philippine body politic under a one-party system just like the Taisei Yokusankai, with Ramos being far more compliant and in more secure and absolute a position than OTL nationalists who collaborated during the Second World War.

Then the winds abruptly change direction. China, having managed to fight the Japanese into a negotiated settlement by the late 1940s, is ready for round two, and as the long-awaited war between Japan and a Sino-American compact arrives, the Philippines is caught in the conflagration. With support from the KMT's intelligence agency and through contacts with Chinese Filipino groups, Ferdinand Marcos mounts a coup that ends the KALIBAPI party state. Japanese overlordship over the archipelago has ended.

It soon becomes apparent that the Imperial Japanese Army has merely been replaced by the National Revolutionary Army. The new government Marcos institutes likewise doesn't feel too different, the most visible difference being that the planes landing in Manila originate in Nanjing, not Tokyo. Marcos's "New Society Movement" is nothing more than a retread of the KMT, with even more nepotism, as evidenced by his wife Imelda still effectively playing Regent to their children after his passing. The brutal crushing of protests after an official renunciation of Philippine sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal effectively cements the new Philippine regime's place in China's sphere. Fallout from this leads the government under Marcos's brother-in-law Romualdez to distance the islands from Nanjing ever so slightly, satisfying public opinion sufficiently and stabilising the situation again.

Now the ascension of yet another Marcos to the presidency leaves one question in the minds of Filipinos: When will the typhoon's winds change again, if they will still blow?
 
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And now, a list on an esoteric subject that appeals and makes sense only to me.


Same as the Old Boss


Chairman of the Commission

1931-1933: Salvatore “Little Caesar” Maranzano (1)
1933-1935: Frank Nitti and Gaetano Reina (2)
1935-1936:Rotating Chairmanship (3)
1936-1937:Vacant (4)
1937-1945: Triumvirate of Frank Costello, Joe Adonis and Vincent Mangano (5)
1945-1957:Joe Adonis (6)
1957-1965: Albert “the Mad Hatter” Anastasia (7)
1965-1979:Frank “Blue Eyes” Sinatra (8)
1979-1980:Joseph Colombo (9)
1980-1986:Salvatore “Sal the Beast” Riina (10)
1986-1999: Joseph “ the Old Man” Barbera (11)

1. The ultimate victor in the Castellammarese War between the traditionalist “Moustache Petes” and the insurgent “Young Turks”, Maranzano’s heavy handed rule ended up differing little from that of his fallen rival, Joe Masseria. Autocratic and greedy enough to despoil others of territory and rackets for his own family’s interests, his purge of ambitious underlings like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and consolidation of all power in his own figure as “Boss of all Bosses” made him a prime target for assassination. His death in 1933 remains one of America’s greatest in unsolved crimes.
2. In the aftermath of Maranzano’s downfall, a power-sharing agreement was decided between the Chicago Outfit and New York’s Five Families, represented by Al Capone’s successor Frank Nitti and Maranzano’s former right-hand man, Reina. Fraught with conflict between the two organizations, as well as the lingering differences between the traditionalists and reformists, the arrangement proved short-lived and dissolved upon Dutch Schultz’s unsanctioned hit on New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey.

3. Looking to escape law enforcement’s attention and avoid creating an obvious target in the aftermath of Maranzano’s disastrous reign, Thomas Dewey’s murder and the arrest of Reina, a new power-sharing scheme was devised by bosses Joe Profaci, Vincent Mangano, Joseph Bonnano, Tommy Gagliano and Vito Genovese as heads of the Five Families and “majority shareholders” of the Commission.

4. Both the newsprint media and FBI director Melvin Purvis remained steadfast in their resolve to war upon the Syndicate, resulting in a temporary dissolution of the Commission as infighting between the Five Families escalated into minor turf wars.

5. Eventually, the need for order and proper organization won out over the petty rivalries, power plays and tugs of war over men and territory, and so a third compromise between the New York Families, the Chicago Outfit and the minor syndicates was reached, just in time for the war.



6. Another of the Mafia’s “Founding Fathers” and alleged participant in the murders of Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, he was most famous for his appearance before the Kefauver Committee, in which the controversial (and obsolete) title of “Boss of all Bosses” was applied to him. He avoided deportation to Italy citing the possibility of political persecution by the Italian Communists, but was eventually forced to leave the country anyways, to avoid further government scrutiny.

7. One of the founders of the American Mafia, as well as the infamous “Murder Inc.”, one of the four gunmen who shot and killed Joe Masseria to end the Castellammarese War and engineered the Organization’s deal with the US Government to aid in the war effort, Anastasia finally came to head the commission after an unsuccessful plot by Vito Genovese and Joe Bonnano to usurp the Syndicate. His feud with the Kefauver Administration and subsequent death two years after that of the president has fueled several conspiracy theories regarding a Sinatra/Kennedy plot being behind both assassinations.

8. As the godson of Frank Costello’s right hand man, Willie Moretti, Sinatra found himself a favorite son of the Genovese Crime Family from an early age, his ruthless, vaulting ambition equally matched by his charismatic leadership and cavalier disregard for the rules of the Old Guard. Having succeeded Don Vito Genovese as head of the family in 1962, he and similarly ambitious caporegimes Vincent Gigante and Carlo Gambino plotted to murder and usurp Anastasia in 1965. His relations with New York’s black and jewish communities -not only working with black gangs, but even accepting some as low level members and enforcers-, as well as his political ties to the Kennedy administration-to the point he bragged of having carried New York and New Jersey for Joe Kennedy in ‘64-, made him a target of criticism from other mobsters, as did his iron-grip on the Havana and Las Vegas gaming operations. When the Vegas conflict with the FBI and the Chicago Outfit nearly turned into all-out war following the Rothstein Incident, he chose to flee to Havana, where he lived the rest of his life in exile.


9. Perhaps best known for his flamboyant personality, leadership the Italian-American Civil Rights League and feuds with Francis Ford Coppola and the Church Commission, the very public New York Don was forced into retirement after a botched attempt on his life by former Sinatra enforcers “Lucky” Cambronne and “Crazy” Joe Gallo.

10. A feature of the Genovese Crime Family since his arrival in the country in 1945, his stint as enforcer and later caporegime was characterized by its brutality and efficiency. Following the murders of Chicago boss Joseph Aiuppa and Anthony “the Ant” Spilotro during the Vegas conflict, he became Sinatra’s right hand man and successor. Unlike Colombo, he notoriously disdained publicly and the press, which did not stop Time magazine from running his face on the front page under the header “The New Murder Inc.”

11. An Old School Mafioso who might at another time been called a “Moustache Pete”, the long-time head of the Gambino Family and notorious “Teflon Don” replaced the much younger Riina at the insistence of the Commission’s Board in the wake of several very public scandals involving the controversial Colombo and Riina. Barbera was most famously involved with the corrupt Real Estate dealings of Donald Trump and Mayor John Gotti, as well as allegedly the sale of the Empire State Building, the scandal which finally brought the Don down.
 
Looking back, the British Revolution of 1923 was a great deal further from success than it seemed at the time, both to terrified conservatives and idealistic ‘risers.’ But as the smoke cleared and Austen Chamberlain’s government set about the task of rebuilding a nation rocked by retreats from Belfast and the Bosporus and a depression that had yet to weaken, cutting costs within the Empire became the order of the day. ‘Dominion Responsibility’ saw crown colonies pawned off to the nearest Dominions; thus Canada found itself ruling much of the Caribbean, the furious Rhodesians were swallowed by South Africa… and Richard Seddon’s dream came true.


SCREEMS FROM THA OLD PLANTATION


Prime Ministers of the Dominion of Oceania


Thomas Wilford, 1924-1929 (Liberal) (1)

James Allen, 1929-1933 (Reform) (2)

John A. Lee, 1933-1939 (Labour) (3)

Sidney Holland, 1939-1945 (National) (4)

Bill Barnard, 1945-1947 (Labour) (5)

Sidney Holland, 1947-1954 (National) (6)

Joh Bjelke-Petersen, 1954-1966 (National) (7)



Prime Ministers of the Republic of Oceania

Joh Bjelke-Petersen, 1966-1991, (National) (8)

Henare Ngata, 1991-1992 (National) (9)

Norman Kirk, 1992-1994 (Pacific Labour) (10)


Prime Ministers of the United Pacific Islands


Ray Peters, 1994-2003 (Pacific Labour) (11)

Ruth Richardson, 2003-2008 (United Pacific) (12)

Mahendra Chaudhry, 2008-2010 (Pacific Labour) (13)

Josaia Bainimarama, 2010-2020 (United Pacific) (14)

D. Donald Johnson, 2020-? (Pacific Opportunities Party) (15)


(1) William Massey was too sick to run a good campaign and too proud to stand down; the Liberals had a last hurrah as their great strategic dream came true. Wilford spent much of his time in office trying to keep his reactionary coalition partners content, fearing that if they tried to follow Britain's lead and ban the Labour party the Dominion would spiral into civil war. Thus, he did not pay the attention he should have when the commission to design the electorates and franchise in the pacific territories did its work, dominated as it was by landowners and financiers...

(2) Allen was a solid if uncharismatic PM. He had a keen interest in the Pacific, and his notable accomplishment was to achieve a dearly held goal of New Zealand for fifty years: buy out recession hit France's share of the New Hebrides Condominium. This turned out to be a disaster when that recession hit London, and then the Dominions, leading to a collapse in support for Oceanic conservatism.

(3) Lee led Oceania for six years. The chastened opposition was in no position to block his program of housing, work schemes and infrastructure development. However, by 1936 the Legislative Council was finding its teeth; with the overrepresentation of the 'Plantation Members' of Fiji, the Upper House was more powerful than it had ever been. They blocked the 'Social Credit' budget of 1936, and to Lee's horror his majority sharply diminished in the election that followed. In 1937 he lost the support of many of his own MPs after initiating talks with the Mau leaders in Samoa; the Pacific territories were unimportant to Labour, but treating avowed rebels as equals smacked of Bolshevism. In 1939 Chancellor Hugenberg invaded Poland, and Parliament felt that it was time for a less divisive leader. To forestall a leadership challenge, Lee called his second snap election; for the second time he lost it.

(4) Sidney Holland saw Oceania through the Second World War. Oceanians fought in the skies above Britain and in the long retreat through Spain. Holland forged an effective partnership with Robert Menzies of Australia, and was disappointed when the conservative government fell to be replaced by Ben Chifley. But Holland did not hesitate to join Chifley in withdrawing his troops when Japan struck south in 1942. Operation FS would be a turning point in the war and Oceania; a bloody failure for Japan, the loss of thousands of Oceanic soldiers at Suva and Apia nonetheless cemented the importance of the islands for many New Zealanders. Henceforth, retreat- or concessions to the locals- would increasingly be seen as a betrayal of the wartime sacrifice, never mind that the Pacific Battalion was also celebrated as one of the most famous units Oceania would field.

(5) Barnard was elected to reward Oceania for years of sacrifice. However, the Labour leader had less than a third of the seats in the Legislative Council- the left could not win any of the 'elected' seats with their strict property requirements, and many of the representatives had stubbornly refused to retire (or, it seemed, die) during Lee's term in office. After a year spent fruitlessly trying to pass a budget, Barnard asked for the dissolution of parliament. He would fight on a promise of electoral reform and disentanglement from the 'Settler Seats' of the islands.

(6) Holland's promise had been simpler: keep the system, keep the islands, spread their wealth. 'The National Fruit Baskets' were a ridiculous gimmick, but they worked- fruit shipped or sometimes flown (!) from the islands at great expense to the European planters, to be distributed to New Zealand voters as a 'taste of the Pacific.' After negotiating a whopping aid package from the United States, Holland could outbid Labour- and without any tinge of socialism. When the Labour movement, unhappy with its parliamentary weakness tried to take direct action, Holland brutally put down the strikes. Holland retired in 1954, secure in his party's dominance of the election.

(7) Bjelke-Petersen saw himself as a typical Oceanian farmer; he had spent some time overseas, and learned how to make it as a farmer in the rough heat of Queensland. He'd moved to Samoa in 1927 to grow taro and bananas, and through hard work (someone's hard work, anyway) he'd made a packet. Elected to be member for Apia in 1936 with the overwhelming support of the hundreds of voters there, he'd even acquired a reputation as a war hero for staying in the city during the Japanese assault. When Holland retired, Joh was a sensible choice as heir- too removed from New Zealand to have a power base there, he would be a transitional leader while the cabinet restructured.

That was the plan, anyway.

(8) After Britain's Greenwood government condemned Oceania for yet another election in which the National Party won another majority with a dozen electorates that had less than a thousand eligible voters each, 'Chief Joh' had called for the constitutional referendum of 1966. The Labour Party found itself in the uncomfortable position of campaigning for monarchism. The UK still didn't want to stop buying butter and lamb, so there wasn't yet an economic cost: congratulations President Upham. Goodbye the Legislative Council- welcome the Senate! Trouble in the islands? 'Consolidate the villages,' and lease the land to good Kiwi farmers who would develop it. Strictly on behalf of the locals of course.

Things began to run out of steam after that. Britain joined the EEC. White Australia wound up, and it was the conservative Malcolm Fraser who 'stabbed us in the back' when he condemned the racial gerrymandering in the Pacific. In 1983, Australian and New Zealand troops actually found themselves facing each other in Timor when Joh's advisors tried to help Indonesia in the long and bloody Dissolution War.

Joh got rich though. He got rich even as the Auckland police tore off their badges and baton charged Whina Cooper's land march. He got rich even as Red Rob Muldoon stood on Queen Street and gave the famous 'Sleeping Dogs Speech.' He got rich even as the All Black Tour of South Africa descended into bloody standstill and Prime Minister Buthelezi's government trembled.

It wasn't until the late eighties when the Cold War began to end, and markets began to close to Oceania in America and Europe and Asia that Joh's party saw the writing on the wall. With assurances from Prime Minister Whitlam that sanctions would ease promptly with the resignation of Joh, the cabinet made its move.

(9) The Māori seats had always been useful to to Oceania: a safety valve for indigenous discontent, and proof that the country wasn't racist, it had guaranteed non-white representation. Henare Ngata had impeccable credentials to be the face of the transition to the new democracy. The son of a war hero, a quiet but competent record in cabinet, unusual honesty for one of Joh's ministers and a lingering credibility as a leader of Māori.

After Joh was forced to step down, Henare remained leader long enough to arrange a free election, but was unable to get the opposition to agree any terms other than an amnesty for National Party leaders. That, in itself, would be controversial enough.

(10) 'Big Norm' had done his spell in Mount Eden, writing his prison letters for Red Rob to read at the rallies. He was slowing down by the time he left prison, of course, but he was a popular hero nonetheless. He did much to rehabilitate Oceania on the world stage- joining the Republic of Australia in its commitment to a 'Nuclear Free Pacific,' personally apologising to the Kingdom of Tonga for Joh's attempted coup in 1981, and above all sitting and listening at Maraes and meeting houses across Aotearoa and the Pacific while ordinary people spoke about a century of oppression. His death in his sleep rocked the country, leading to persistent conspiracy theories that he had been murdered by Americans or the Japanese or the National Party.

(11) Young, handsome and charismatic, Raymond Peters led Oceania to the new millennium. Heavily leaning into his status as a mixed-race man whose very existence was the kind of marriage between European New Zealand and the Pacific that Joh had found abhorrent, Peters was an unabashed populist. He finally abolished the Senate- 'a hand break on democracy!' and extended the welfare state to all Oceanians regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or geographic location. He did not go as far as many in his party wished, however. Giving independence to the Pacific Islands would have thrown away Labour seats and enraged the white New Zealanders whose parents and grandparents had fought against Operation KS; land reform would panic those same white New Zealanders and spook financial markets who were worried about the socialist firebrands in his party. In the end, it was Peters unwillingness to fight corruption that brought him down- after all, white New Zealand had had a taste for decades, why shouldn't the rest of Oceania? When his Taito Philip Fields was arrested for massive embezzlement at the education ministry, Peters knew his days were numbered- but he stayed on to fight the next election anyway.

(12) Ruth Richardson was not, technically, corrupt. United Pacific- not the National Party, thank you- came to power on a promise to kickstart the economy, and it did. Joh's state corporations were privatised. Public land was sold off in vast amounts. Land Reform technically happened: the favorable leases of vast chunks of Samoa and Fiji were terminated- and instead, American agribusiness was invited in. The economy grew, and unemployment rose. 'One more year of prosperity like this,' said a wag, 'and we'll all die of poverty.'

(13) A veteran of Fiji Labour, Chaudhry had a brief and unhappy term in office. Coming to power amidst the recession of 2008, he found that eight years of Ruthanasia had left him with few levers to pull. The treasury remained institutionally right-wing- Peters had never had any success getting his own civil servants there, unlike in Foreign Affairs, Health or Education. Chaudhry's only notable success was to bring in another round of electoral reform- bringing back the upper house, this time to be elected with 'List MPs', while the electorates would now be chosen by STV. He called the first election under the new system, in time for his party to split into a collection of regional Labour offshoots.

(14) Bainimarama had no trouble deposing Chaudhry. As a young man, he had been in one of Joh's racially integrated Advisory Units in Indonesia, and had done well in the nineties as a right-wing hero for Indigenous Fijians who could nevertheless keep young radicals from threatening the planter elites. He came to Wellington in 2003, and quickly became Minister for Defence for Richardson. Ten years of populism- reversing his patron's old cuts, playing the divided left wing parties against each other, always finding a symbolic way to give something back to the indigenous Pacifica without worrying Wall Street too much... he was a dangerous man. In the end, it was not the left who ended his career.

(15) The first indigenous Samoan to become Prime Minister of Oceania, Donald Johnson's undoubted charisma and personal presence made up for a slight wooliness on policy. The captain who had led the All Blacks back into the international competition and to World Cup glory in Buenos Aires in 1998, Johnson had gone on to be a successful investor and activist. Adept at social media- he could go viral with a raised eyebrow- his coalition ranges from the left to the centre right. Whether it can deliver anything that he has promised remains to be seen.
 
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I am shocked and appalled that @Bonniecanuck's intelligent and considered list about a country that rarely features in alternate history has been better received than my rambling, overlong piece that ends in All Black Captain Dwayne Johnson becoming Emmanuel Macron.

Congratulations all.
 
I am shocked and appalled that @Bonniecanuck's intelligent and considered list about a country that rarely features in alternate history has been better received than my rambling, overlong piece that ends in All Black Captain Dwayne Johnson becoming Emmanuel Macron.

Congratulations all.

It would be more "intelligent and considered" if I was actually arsed to track down the origin of that damn quote
 
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