The Atlas Continent

[Kuumo]

This sounds fun. Would the continent be a real continent like Africa or Europe or a fantasy continent like a landmass in the middle of the Indian Ocean or a complete fantasy continent like Middle Earth or Westeros?

[Kuumo]

I’ll take country number 5.

Name: Republic of Jahandir
Capital: Kounurakat
Largest City: Kounurakat
Population: 54,672,924
Official Languages: Arabic, Malinke, Kighanju (tropical forest natives), Rehousi (desert natives)
Ethnic Composition: Berber (55%), Mandinka (28%), Kighanju (6%), Lebanese (4%), Rehousi (3%), Hausa (2%), Sephardi (2%)
Religions: Sunni Islam (77%), Shi'a Islam (6%), Indigenous religions (6%), Christianity (4%), Judaism (2%), none (5%)

History: The first settlers of Jahandir came from an expedition sent by Mansa Muhammad of the Mali Empire in 1312. After the first voyage, the new emperor Mansa Musa funded additional voyages to establish trade posts along the coastline and further explore the interior of the continent. At the end of Mansa Musa's reign, the city of Kounarakat was established at the Gharanjumu river delta.

Following the end of the Reconquista and the Alhambra Decree in Spain, many of the Muslim and Sephardic residents of the Iberian peninsula emigrated to Jahandir with the encouragement of the Mansa.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Mali Empire in west Africa in the 1670s, a prince of the ruling Keita dynasty fled to Kounarakat and declared himself Mansa Maghan I of Jahandir. Over the next century, rising ethnic tensions between the Mandinka ruling class and the now-majority Berbers culminated in the overthrow of the Keita dynasty by the ethnic Berber general Tariq ibn Rashid in 1790, whose Tariqid dynasty would rule until the Jahandi Revolution in 1924. Following the revolution, Jahandir was led by a series of authoritarian presidents aligned with the United States during the Cold War. Current human development, secularism, and press freedom are similar to modern Turkey.

Economy: Jahandir's economy is primarily based on agriculture and mining.

[Kuumo]

Light orange: provinces
Dark orange: Federal District (Kounurakat)
Gray: territories
Green: Kighanju Autonomous Republics
Yellow: Rehousi Autonomous Republic

The Republic of Jahandir is a unitary state with 38 provinces, a Federal District, four territories, and three autonomous republics. Provinces are run by elected governors and provincial assemblies and are further divided into cities and districts. The Federal District functions similarly to a provincial government with slightly fewer powers and does not contain any subdistrict governments. Territories have no subnational legislatures and have governors appointed by the national government. Autonomous republics for the native populations function similarly to provinces but have governments with the power to pass laws in certain areas that cannot be overridden by the national government.

[Kuumo]

Government of Jahandir

The Republic of Jahandir is a semi-presidential parliamentary republic founded in 1926. Under the current constitution, the President is elected every five years via a two-round system where candidates from all parties run in the first round and the top two vote-getters advance to a second round four weeks later where the candidate with more votes in the second round is elected President. The National Assembly is the legislative body of Jahandir, consisting of 250 members elected concurrently with and 30 months after each Presidential election.


Political Parties of Jahandir

Law and Justice Party (right-wing populist)
(Arabic: حزب القانون والعدالة)
Leader: President Yousef Tahri
Assembly Leader: Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelhamid Idrisi

The Law and Justice Party was founded in 1995 as a merger of the center-right Jahandi National Party and other right-of-center parties. Originally an internationalist, pro-business party continuing the legacy of the Jahandi National Party, the Law and Justice Party has taken an authoritarian turn in recent years, including increased censorship of perceived un-patriotic and un-Islamic values in media and public schools and attempts to curb the power of the independent judiciary. The current and historic base of party is in the outer cities of the Gharanjumu Delta, which are considerably wealthier and more Berber than Kounurakat and its immediate environs. Recent gains have been made in the arid, rural, and deeply religious central part of Jahandir under President Tahri through his focus on social and cultural issues on the campaign trail and in office.


Social Democratic Party (left-wing, social moderate)
(Arabic: الحزب الاشتراكي الديمقراطي)
Leader: Opposition Leader Oumar Kourouma

The Social Democratic Party has existed since the Republic's founding. In the early days of the Republic, it was the dominant party due to its strong support from the lower classes who felt left behind by the monarchy. During the Cold War, the party took a more neutral stance than the strongly pro-American Jahandi National Party, although today the Social Democratic Party is generally more supportive of the United States and the first-world countries on the continent than the Law and Justice Party. The Social Democratic Party aims to block President Tahri's attempts at increasing presidential power and improve the education and healthcare systems of the country. Their strongest support is found in Kounurakat, nearby communities in the Gharanjumu Delta, Cordoba (the largest city in central Jahandir), and the east coast, a relatively prosperous region due to trade with New Surrey and Sulista.


Brotherhood of Jahandir (right-wing, Islamist)
(Arabic: اخوان جهاندير)
Leader: Minister of Agriculture Ismail Hassan

The Brotherhood of Jahandir is the sole major Islamist party of Jahandir. Although historically a minor party, the Brotherhood of Jahandir has experienced a rapid surge in support in recent years as part of a backlash to the previous Social Democratic government. Due to inspiration from the Republic of Turkey a few years earlier and the geographic isolation of the country from other majority Muslim states, Jahandir was established as a secular republic without a state religion. The Brotherhood aims to amend the constitution of Jahandir to include Sunni Islam as the state religion as well as restricting the sale of alcohol, re-establishing anti-sodomy laws nationally, and instituting prayer in public schools. They are currently in a coalition government with Law and Justice after the latter lost their majority government following the 2021 parliamentary elections.


Sons of Maghan (right-wing, Mandinka nationalist)
(Arabic: أبناء مغان)
Leader: Assemblyman Moussa Kpoghoumou

Following the ouster of the last Keita Mansa in the early 1790s, a group of Mandinka nobles traveled west to establish a new community far away from Sultan Tariq I and his supporters. This area operated largely independently for generations despite officially remaining part of the Tariqid Sultanate. During the Jahandi Revolution, a group of radicals from this area briefly declared independence from Jahandir before being quickly defeated due to lack of popular support. The resentment toward the government in Kounurakat continued among the elite families, who formed the Sons of Maghan in 1950 in an attempt to achievement autonomy for their region. The establishment of the Kighanju and Rehousi autonomous republics in 1996 sparked outrage among the Mandinka population in far western Jahandir, who wanted the Social Democratic government to also grant them autonomy. The Sons of Maghan took advantage of this moment to increase their support among the common people in their home region but continue to have issues expanding their appeal to Mandinka Jahandis in other regions.


Jahandi Communist Party (far left)
(Arabic: حزب جهاندير الشيوعي)
Leader: Assemblyman Mohamed Farouzi

The Jahandi Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist Party that has declined significantly since its height in the 1960s. The party's base is the mining communities in the western mountains along the Secoterran border. With the steady decline of mining in the region and the aging of the local population, the party has recently tried to expand its support to Kighanju voters in the neighboring autonomous republics. These effects have been met with little success due to a long history of disputes between miners and the local indigenous populations.


Green Party (left-wing, social liberal)
(Arabic: الحزب السياسي الأخضر)
Leader: Assemblywoman Mariam Rashid

The Green Party is a new political party founded in 2012. Sharing most of its views with the Social Democratic Party, the party is known for its opposition to mining, support for renewable energy, and support for LGBT rights, calling for the national government to overturn the (largely unenforced) anti-sodomy laws in central Jahandir and, among the more progressive leaders, pass civil unions for same-sex couples. The Green Party's strongest support is among young voters, especially women, in the Kounurakat area and the east coast, particularly in the city of Madinat al-Salaam at the mouth of the Rahalikesh River.


Rehousi People’s Party (left-wing, Rehousi interest)
(Arabic: حزب شعب الريحوسي) (Rehousi: zi’Rehsiyna Ekkidya)
Leader: Assemblyman Ali Kalnya-Parwus

The Rehousi People's Party is a big-tent but mostly left-wing party founded in 1972 and followed by a majority of Rehousi voters in the Rehousi Autonomous Republic. It is usually an ally of the Social Democratic Party.


National Democratic Alliance (left-wing to centrist, Kighanju interest)
(Arabic: التحالف الوطني الديمقراطي) (Kighanju: Ghayal Timukratiku Musunjari)
Leader: Assemblywoman Sayyida ri-Khalid Jutunaghasi

The National Democratic Alliance is a mainstream big-tent party founded in 1986 and followed by a narrow majority of Kighanju voters. Although less supportive of the mainstream parties than the Rehousi People's Party, it is also usually allied with the Social Democratic Party.


People’s Liberation Movement (far left, Kighanju nationalist, banned by current government)
(Arabic: حركة التحرير الشعبية) (Kighanju: Ghayal Najalamirakighi)
Leader: Former Assemblyman Uyujunal ru-Yanijur Tuharaghasi (imprisoned)

The People's Liberation Movement represents the radical elements of Kighanju politics. Its roots originate even before the Republic, when frequent conflicts with the Berber and Mandinka settlers in their ancestral homeland led to the creation of underground militias to defend their communities. During the chaos of the Jahandi Revolution, both the forces of the monarchy and the revolutionary army committed massacres against Kighanju civilians when seizing militarily important locations in the region.

After the establishment of the republic, Kighanju leaders demanded autonomy from the new government in Kounurakat and were rejected by the Berber and Mandinka-dominated government. Continued unrest in the Kighanju region, including explosions of trains and boats passing through the region led to 20 years of occupation by the Jahandi Army. Continued civil disobedience and terrorism by the Kighanju took a communist slant during the Cold War, leading to financial support for Kighanju radicals by the Soviet Union and communist organizations in other countries on the continent. Tensions between the Kighanju and the national government would thaw in the 1980s, with a few concessions made by the national government such as the allowance of Kighanju interest parties to field candidates in elections. This led to the formal founding of both the National Democratic Alliance and the People's Liberation Movement as political parties in 1986. Continued distrust of the People's Liberation Movement due to their leaders' past associations led to widespread distrust of the party. The People's Liberation Movement moved to the center in the 1990s, purging many of their more radical members.

However, paranoia over the rise of the far right in mainstream Jahandi society in the 2010s led to the People's Liberation Movement electing Uyujunal ru-Yanijur Tuharaghasi as their new leader in 2014. As a non-Muslim Kighanju animist practitioner and public supporter of communism with alleged ties to insurgent movements, Tuharaghasi quickly became a hero for the old guard of radical Kighanju activists and a boogeyman for Jahandi conservatives. He unexpectedly defeated the incumbent National Democratic Alliance assemblyman for the Southern Kighanju Autonomous Republic in 2016. With the rise of Yousef Tahri soon after Tuharaghasi's election, Tuharaghasi decided to run in the 2019 Presidential election as a statement for Kighanju independence. Though he finished with only 1.1% of the vote and narrowly lost his own constituency, his performance was the best ever for his party. Two years into the Tahri administration, Tuharaghasi was indicted for tax fraud and campaign finance violations. While there was clear evidence for Tuharaghasi's guilt, the timing of the indictment and the unusually long sentence have added to suspicions that it was politically motivated and orchestrated by the Law and Justice Party. A few months later, the party was banned after the passage of a law prohibiting parties advocating for violent overthrow of the Jahandi government from running candidates in elections.


2019 Presidential Election Round 1


Yousef Tahri (Law and Justice): 26.4% (advanced to second round)
Ibrahim Khalidi (Social Democratic): 25.1% (advanced to second round)
Malik Umar (Brotherhood of Jahandir): 17.3%
Menachem Salomon (Green Party): 10.1%
Hamidou Bagayoko (Sons of Maghan): 6.7%
Yahya Karam (Jahandi Communist Party): 6.1%
Samir ru-Tusajal Rumanaghasi (National Democratic Alliance): 3.2%
Mohamed Govarjin-Sarvipurakyal (Rehousi People’s Party): 1.6%
Uyujunal ru-Yanijur Tuharaghasi (People’s Liberation Movement): 1.1%


2019 Presidential Election Round 2


Yousef Tahri (Law and Justice): 52.8% (elected President)
Ibrahim Khalidi (Social Democratic): 47.2%

[Kuumo]

President Tahri has issued a seismic activity warning for the provinces bordering Secoterra and offers his thoughts and prayers to those affected.

Green Party leader Mariam Rashid (G-Kounurakat West Central) has introduced a bill to provide aid to the affected countries. The current draft faces an uphill battle due to controversy over the amount of funding proposed and opposition to aid for Isallo among budget and foreign policy hawks in the governing coalition.