President Silas Flemming

Silas Vestergaard Flemming was born on October 10, 1973, in Longenager, Visholm. His parents, Sigurd and Charlotte Flemming, both served in the Republican Army and went M.I.A. during the Civil War. Flemming grew up in an orphanage. After finishing school, he served in the Army on the Kirajevo Infantry Base, then, in 1992, he studied History at the University of Pontrath. There, he met many other orphans from the Unification War. He began to research about the war in detail and found out, that there had been a lot of war crimes that never got worked up. He decided, that this must be changed - that was his doorway into politics. After finishing studies in 1995, he joined the Meritocratic Unity Party and became a member of the Rathlandic State Council, making him switch his location from Pontrath to Jillich. Following the results of his research, he initiated the founding of an investigation commission clearing up many details of the Civil War. The results got published in 1997. Flemming was very satisfied with them - even if his parents' fate remained unsolved and still is today.

In 1999, Flemming left the State Council of the Rathlandic Federated Republic, and moved to Lysköping, where he started getting active in the national committee for regional planning. His ideas for housing management and logistics were so convincing, that he became head of the commission in 2000 and therefore member of the national Meritocratic Council.

In 2002, President Rudolph Nieweiler died, and a successor needed to be found. After a long selection process, Flemming and Jan Svensson were the both candidates left - by a stupid coincidence, both got the equal number of votes. Not a single MMC wanted to change his or her vote - those who favored Svensson considered Flemming's young age, 28 at that time, a problem, whereas Flemming's supporters considered particularly this a chance to change paradigms in the nation. - Eventually, Flemming and Svensson had to decide this by a mud wrestling duel, which Flemming won. On August 4, 2002, he got introduced into office.

President of Lillorainen

The first law Flemming passed was, with the Meritocratic Council's help, that the Meritocratic Council always requires to consist of an uneven number of members, to prevent potential successors from having to fight it out the way he did (or an even worse one).

In his first years, he ran his campaign Volksnähe (= closeness to the people) - after he had determined, that normal people had only very limited possibilities to take influence on the political process. He established a network of Civil Offices covering the entire nation. He also was the first President of Lillorainen who took part in public beer fests and parties.

Another issue was the demographic problem. While the Unification War had decimated wide parts of the older generation, the post-war poverty had ensured an extremely high birth rate in the 1980s and early 1990s. Flemming saw, that this young generation was growing up and searching for living space, which was missing in many parts of the Federation. As a result, he continued the work he had succeeded in before and expanded it nationwide - establishing giant housing projects, within a relatively short time. By doing this, he prevented a problem of mass homelessness that would have been the biggest one since the end of the war.

Flemming made his former opponent Svensson the new General Officer for economic development. When asked in an interview, why him of all people, Flemming answered, "Wer mir in einem derartig mädchenhaften Zweikampf unterliegt, gehört angemessen entschädigt." ("Who's beaten by me in such a girlish duel, should be compensated reasonably.")

From Day One, Flemming also thought about the poorest part of the populace. He extended the prevailing social network - and permanently extended it again. Within a couple of years, he had ensured, that no citizen of Lillorainen has to fear hunger or homelessness anymore. The standard of living for the poorest 10% became the highest in nation's history.

To a certain degree, Flemming has not abolished conscription, but he established laws making it reasonably easy to bypass service. He also abolished death penalty for deserters and turned it into prison sentence. Since 2019, this has been up to State law.

He established the "happy hour of free drinks" practice for (secular) national holidays.

Trivia

• Flemming is quite multilingual. He is fluent at German (both Standard German and Rhenish dialect), Danish, Serbian, and English. He can also speak some Italian.

• He loves fast cars and often drives himself to places instead of having his chauffeur driving.

• He likes drinking beer and rum.
  

Phrases he uses quite frequently

• "Das macht mich ganz rammdösig!" - "That's driving me totally crazy!" The word rammdösig is a typical expression existing only in the Low German dialects (and very common in Lillorainen, of course).

• "E jebi ga!" - Serbian, literally meaning "ey, f... it." Usually with a dismissive hand gesture.

• "Su ne Driss!" - something like "what a mess!" - another very dialectal expression.

• "Koji ti je kurac!" - Serbian, "what the hell?" or "what's wrong with you?"

• "Hmmst!" - not translatable. Used when feeling mocked, or losing an argument.