Valoasan Confederation of Provinces

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The Valoasan Confederation of Provinces. informally addressed by the abbreviation CoP, is the lower chamber of the National Chamber of Hvaloaszna and lower house of the legislature of Hvaloaszna. It has held this role since the body replaced the previously instated Confederation of Peoples in 1931. As well as being notable for thus being created after the Confederation of Servants - the upper house of the Valoasan legislature. it exists as one of the only lower houses of a national legislature to be elected through an indirect method, with the direct election of the members of Provincial Governments allowing the legislature to be appointed based upon the results of democratic elections within each of the seven Provinces.

Valoasan Confederation of Provinces
15th communion
Type
Type	Lower house of the National Chamber of Hvaloaszna
History
Founded	8 August 1931 (1931-08-08)
Preceded by	Confederation of Peoples
Leadership
First Minister	Stijn Dijkstra, Community of the People since 1 September 2021
Speaker	Clara Axisa, Community of the People since 1 September 2021
Contrarian Voice	Xavier Maeson, National Union Party since 1 September 2021
Structure
Seats	77 seats
Political groups	Government (46)   Community of the People (22)   Akuan Party (15)   For the Farmers (9) Opposition (31)   National Union Party (13)   Silenced No Longer (8)   Worker's Alternative (7)   Akuan Vanguard (3)
Length of term	6 years
Elections
Voting system	Appointment by Province Governments
Meeting place
Former hall of the Chamber of Commerce, Tromsømore

Following the failure of the First Constitution of Hvaloaszna to create a system accommodating to the radically different political and economic landscapes of the three islands that make up the nation of Hvaloaszna, the structure. organization and composition of the Confederation of Provinces was formulated and laid-out in Article 2 of the Second Constitution of Hvaloaszna. as the second of the colloquially known "Gunpoint Articles", referring to the Articles heavily amended to appease armed protest groups in the three easternmost Provinces, comprising the island of Kabeiland, As dictated by the document, the CoP is comprised of 77 Representatives, with each Province able to allocate 11 seats, regardless of their geographical size or population. As these representatives are all appointed and the democratic process functions through indirect means, the system in place to appoint members of the Confederation of Provinces is notably different dependant on the individual Constitutions of each Province. Despite this, following the 1941 Constitutional Amendment, the unified procedure of automatically appointing a member of each party for every 10% of seats they control within the Provincial Legislature has been instituted and enforced within each of the seven Provinces.

While not an unheard of quantity of seats. the CoP has become notable for having less total seats than any of the legislatures within the Provinces, with a majority of the subnational entitles having legislatures of 90 seats, with the three exceptions in Kabeiland each exceeding 82 seats. While a number of attempts have been made to amend the Constitution in order to increase the total seat count, debates over how such seats should be awarded, both amongst the Provinces - in accordance with debates of the policy of equal representation of Provinces - as well as in terms of the laws on legislative appointments, have almost entirely stalled such suggestions into unviability. In this context. many point to the perceived weakness of the federal government as a body as to the reason such a change has not been undertaken. with the increased threshold for bills which supersede provincial law and the ability of the Confederation of Servants to veto any bill without express reason exacerbating the internal divisions within Hvaloaszna and empowering legislature on a provincial level as a more significant force for change for internal issues which are not expressly enacted on a federal level.

While having such limitations, the CoP serves an important role within the political framework of Hvaloaszna. It elects and oversees the First Minister of Hvaloaszna, the nation's head of government. and may remove them through a simple majority. It is notable that unlike most parliamentary legislatures, the body cannot be dissolved during their six year term, and is therefore tasked with voting in the next government following the removal of a head of government. As one of the two chambers of the National Chamber of Hvaloaszna, the Confederation of Provinces holds exclusive power to draft, initiate and pass federal-level legislative acts to the Confederation of Servants for approval. In addition, the body's approval is required in the approval of the federal budget, granting it considerable sway on the direction taken in the allocation of funds and thereby monetary policy.

Following a string of politically motivated violence and demonstrations having occurred in the building which housed the Confederation of Peoples, the Hall of Peace - which stands directly adjacent to the temple in which the Confederation of Servants still convene, the Confederation of Provinces currently meets and holds sessions within the former hall of the Valoasan Chamber of Commerce. located in the financial district of the capital city of Hvaloaszna. Tromsømore. While historically all official government discussions were mandated to be conducted using the Nys'tat'en language, the right for legislators to speak Vistarian or Norgsveltian within legislative sessions has been introduced during the National Union Party-led minority government in 2009. As elected following the formation of the 15th Confederation of Provinces, referred to as the 15th Communion, the First Minister of Hvaloaszna is Stijn Dijkstra, and the Speaker is Clara Axisa, both being members of the Community of the People parliamentary group. The Contrition Voice, who acts a the leader of the Opposition, is Xavier Maeson of the National Union Party. Notably reflecting the controversial flaws within Article 2 in establishing the function of the legislative body, all three of these figures were appointed by the Province of Ziltolf, with the Ziltholfer parties of the Free Social Democrats and Economy Forward making up the largest portion of their respective parliamentary groups. Such a reality has increased animosity between the Provinces of Kabeiland and the other two islands, with political analysts suggesting a high likelihood of legislators from the 4 Provinces outside of Kabeiland forming a unified effort against the influence gained by Kabeiland through the Second Constitution, furthering internal divisions in the country.