Burton K Wheeler
The G.O.A.T. That Can't Be Got
- Location
- Tr'ondëk
This is a weird thread title. Bear with me.
For some time I've had sort of a half-assed idea to cooperatively come up with the most complicated possible political system. Tricameral or quadricameral legislature, Canadian-style federalism where one federal entity is half the country and some have less people than a small town, Canadian-style binationalism, split executives, multiple voting systems, all that. I was going to make a thread but realized that without a firm example of what the country is, we'd never get anywhere.
Then it hit me. There's a really obvious place where a simple POD could create a political entity where an insanely convoluted political system would not only be possible but likely.
A bit vague here, but let's say that Sir Henry Bartle-Frere doesn't make a colossal fuckup in 1879. His plan for a South African confederation works. Under British rule, you have Cape Colony, Natal (the southern half of the historical South African province), Transvaal, Oranje Vrystaat, KwaZulu, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Botswana. Rhodesia becomes a white settler colony on schedule but is incorporated into South Africa (like was narrowly voted down in the 1920's) and Southwest Africa becomes a South African mandate after the Great War. Zambia and Malawi would be South African territory but may become independent down the line.
I am way too lazy to make a map, but split Natal and KwaZulu on the Tugela river and change the other names and you have the idea.
So what does the political system of this federated South Africa look like in 2020? How did the country evolve? We can assume that transition to majority rule was gradual and peaceful and that representing all races and ethnicities is a cornerstone of its political system. We have wildly disparate federal entity sizes and prosperity, white binationalism along with 20 or so other major national groups that don't correspond with federal entity boundaries, and a lot more complicated factors without even introducing complications. Whether South Africa becomes a republic or maintains the monarchy is up to you. I think that some form of the latter would be more likely.
For some time I've had sort of a half-assed idea to cooperatively come up with the most complicated possible political system. Tricameral or quadricameral legislature, Canadian-style federalism where one federal entity is half the country and some have less people than a small town, Canadian-style binationalism, split executives, multiple voting systems, all that. I was going to make a thread but realized that without a firm example of what the country is, we'd never get anywhere.
Then it hit me. There's a really obvious place where a simple POD could create a political entity where an insanely convoluted political system would not only be possible but likely.
A bit vague here, but let's say that Sir Henry Bartle-Frere doesn't make a colossal fuckup in 1879. His plan for a South African confederation works. Under British rule, you have Cape Colony, Natal (the southern half of the historical South African province), Transvaal, Oranje Vrystaat, KwaZulu, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Botswana. Rhodesia becomes a white settler colony on schedule but is incorporated into South Africa (like was narrowly voted down in the 1920's) and Southwest Africa becomes a South African mandate after the Great War. Zambia and Malawi would be South African territory but may become independent down the line.
I am way too lazy to make a map, but split Natal and KwaZulu on the Tugela river and change the other names and you have the idea.
So what does the political system of this federated South Africa look like in 2020? How did the country evolve? We can assume that transition to majority rule was gradual and peaceful and that representing all races and ethnicities is a cornerstone of its political system. We have wildly disparate federal entity sizes and prosperity, white binationalism along with 20 or so other major national groups that don't correspond with federal entity boundaries, and a lot more complicated factors without even introducing complications. Whether South Africa becomes a republic or maintains the monarchy is up to you. I think that some form of the latter would be more likely.