Snø Jens resigns as Artist leader amid party crisis

The National Artists’ Guild campaign team for the September 2016 election. Jens-Galieri, in the far-left.

The leader of the National Artists’ Guild, Snø Jens-Galieri, has announced his effective resignation from his position in the nationalist party after only three months of assuming the leadership. The resignation comes after months of internal crisis in the party.

Jens-Galieri became the Artists’ leader after the resignation of former Prime Minister Shounn Virny , following his loss in the constitutional referendum held in March. The Artists were up until now split into two warring factions, Jens-Galieri’s supporters, who backed the “yes” in March’s referendum, and the former Prime Minister’s Virnyists, who supported the “no”. A leadership election is due to be held in the coming weeks. In the meantime, parliamentary bloc deputy leader Harmê Bertram has assumed the leadership.

Jens-Galieri’s resignation comes at a critical point in the Guild’s internal crisis, after the Mayor of Alios, Étienne Boulin (a Jensist) defected the party to become an independent. The Governor of Gonn, Suipom Goyo, has not yet left the party, but publicly expressed his disillusionment with the state of the Guild, and called for a “strong, united left”. But perhaps the strongest sign that the party has lost its credibility were the harsh words of Napoléon Bleuberrie, the main ideologue behind the party and an important member of its central bureau. During a class of his political science course in the Isadoran University last friday, the two-time PM and former Army General called the party a “carcass of its former self”, and admitted being disappointed in the party’s performance in the Constitutional Assembly and the third Parliament.

Indeed, Jens-Galieri mentioned Bleuberrie’s comments as one of the main reasons he has decided to abandon the Guild’s leadership. In a statement released shortly after presenting his resignation, the career politician admitted he “no longer felt like [he held] his party’s trust”. Orion Bennet, MP for the Artists and close associate of Virny, called the interim leader’s departure “unfortunate”, but said nothing of the party’s precarious state and uncertain future.

According to a poll held by The SiV Phonograph, 55% of people who voted for the Guild in the last election are disappointed with the current state of the party, and 33% would rather have the party dissolve altogether. Following Jens-Galieri’s resignation, the leader of the Left Alliance Apollo Cerwyn invited disenchanted Guild voters to join the Alliance, which he called “the true party of the people”.

A similar sentiment is held by Hidram Cerwyn, Apollo’s brother, who voted for the Guild in May. “I see potential in a broad, inclusive, popular and united front that counters the Liberals’ influence in Parliament and eventually regains the government. But Artists will not just willingly throw their votes to the Left as the Guild implodes; the Alliance needs to incorporate the Artists’ interests or they’ll never get the strength to fight the Liberals.” Cerwyn admitted that if elections were held tomorrow, he would vote for the Left. “But I still believe the Alliance needs to reform itself to incorporate disenfranchised Artists”, he quickly added.

Marie-Antoinette Arosaky, who voted for the Artists in the last election, manifests her disenchantment with the state of politics in the Kingdom altogether. “I don’t like the Liberals, but I don’t like the Left either. The Artists represented my values, but now they don’t act in the people’s interests. They only fight each other for power.” Ms. Arosaky says if an election were held tomorrow, she would probably not vote.

The future of the National Artists’ Guild is uncertain. What was once the largest and most powerful party in the Kingdom is now disintegrating before everyone’s eyes. The SiV Phonograph predicted a potential crisis in the party over a year ago, when the Left Alliance entered the scene. Now, Artists leaders see their party slip through their fingers, and there’s not much they can do to stop it. Months of infighting have weakened the party’s structures. Their morale is nearly gone after losing the support of Bleuberrie, the whale shark behind their core ideology. Over the following weeks, the few supporters the Guild has left will probably jump out of the sinking ship.

If a united leftist front of the kind Hidram Cerwyn envisions is formed, it will be the first time in over four years that there are only two political parties in Sabia and Verona. A return to two-party politics could cement the much needed political stability the Kingdom needs after the transformations brought forth by the new constitution, as long as it proves to be effective, but it’s a gamble the Sabioveronese left must take if it intends to survive.

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