The Atlas Continent

[GoTfan]

I'm in.

[GoTfan]

I'll take country number 12. Details to come.

Name: Republic of Sulista

Capital: New Portsmouth

Largest City: Highsword

Official Language: None

Main Languaghes Spoken: English, Portuguese, Spanish

Population: 11,237,156

Demographics: European (46%), Latino (24%), Black (17%), Other/Multiracial (10%), Indigenous (3%)

Government Type: Unitary Semi-Presidential Republic

President: Richard Holdsworth (Democratic Labour Party)

Prime Minister: Alejandro Rojas (Democratic Labour Party)

Overview:

Sulista began life as a small Portuguese colony, and would develop into an important outpost for the Portuguese Empire over the years, allowing them to firm up their colonies in South America and serve as a naval base for the Portuguese Fleet in that region of the world. However, as the years wore on, it also became a hub for British traders, and a significant British community sprung up on the coastline. This population continued increasing until the Napoleonic Wars, where Sulista Colony's port were used to house British warships. After Napoleon's final fall in 1815, an agreement was reached by which Sulista was turned over to the British, no doubt aided by significant push from the significant British community there.

Sulista would retain its original name however; there couldn't be too much rocking of the proverbial boat considering that there was a significant Portuguese minority on the island.

There were several hard pushes for increased local democracy over the next centuries, and as part of the Balfour Declaration in 1926, Sulista was confirmed as a Dominion of the British Empire, with Sir Thomas Hollingbrooke as the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Sulista, though this did little to curb the rising Sulistan nationalism.

In 1949, during the fervour of anti-colonialism springing up over the world, Sulista was granted the authority to hold a referendum on whether to stay in the British Commonwealth or declare independence. The divide was largely along ethnic lines; the British community voted heavily to stay
in the Commonwealth, but almost everyone else voted for independence.

The new Republic of Sulista remained a strange mishmash of British and Portuguese influences during the Cold War, and for some time, it look like the country had made a successful go of independence until it fell under the autocratic rule of President Lancea. A former Army General, Lancea rallied millions of supporters to his right-wing United Sulista Party, promising to end political gridlock and fix the economic crisis going on; the USP won the election handily.

Lancea removed those he deemed political opponents from the Public Service and military positions, and implementing loyalty tests for his Prime Minister and Cabinet. Lancea was never truly a dictator, but he severely curbed election freedoms for just about everyone. After winning a third term in 1984, he went too far, and was impeached and removed from power in 1986. The Constitutional reforms of 1987 formally limited the President to two terms, increased the power of the courts, and constitutionally enshrined protection of the Public Service from political interference, though it wasn't until 2001 that the military's influence over politics was decisively removed, and governments in that time faced the constant fear of an armed coup.

Today, Sulista is a vibrant democracy with an economy based around manufacturing, tourism, and strong trade ties with the United States and South America.