From the Pelachis Observer, Sunday Edition
Councillor Darsi Receives Suspension Following Tuesday’s Brouhaha
PELACHIS, Capital Province — A Mūni legislator was ejected from the Grand Council on Tuesday for causing a disturbance following the legislature’s vote to request admittance to the Council of Gondwana on behalf of Hlenderia as an observer state.
After the vote passed 126-61, Saharu-madis Darsi, of the Mūni Peoples Front, took the floor and began accosting President Marsilamat Indari and his legislative majority, to cheers from legislators from the MPF and its ally, the United Southeastern Mūni Bands. Darsi accused the President and his party, the Traditionalist Kwarim, of “promoting cosmopolitan ideology” and “humiliating Hlenderia” through their “obsession with gaining the approval of foreigners”.
The Council floor exploded into shouts when, halfway through his speech, Darsi stopped using Standard Hlenderian and lapsed into his native Mūni dialect. Darsi was finally ejected by the Speaker when he addressed the President directly using informal pronouns, saying to Indari - translated for the benefit of our Staynish-speaking readers - “thou wilt regret fraternizing with these foreign animals. Thou wouldst have Hlenderians coequal with foreign orcs, elves, and all manner of lesser beings!”
For these remarks, the Speakers Office suspended Darsi for two days and fined him 1,500 dina for “insulting the office of the President through his use of the informal, and for promoting interspecies prejudice.”
The Pelachis Observer notes that the Mūni Peoples Front paid Darsi’s fine, and a recent campaign email for the embattled legislator said “Saharu-madis regrets nothing!”[1] President Indari, in a press conference after the incident, said that “It is regrettable that Councillor Darsi lost his temper, but this does not negate the great win that our majority has achieved. We look forward to our acceptance letter from the Council of Gondwana, and hope that this is merely another step by Hlenderia towards greater prominence on the world stage.”
The vote was the culmination of a two-year-long campaign by Indari and His Majesty the King to join the Council of Gondwana. The Observer understands that His Majesty and the President’s office hoped that the legislature would approve an application for full member status, but that the government chose to apply for observer status to appease right-wing members of the Kwari People’s Party and the Traditionalist Kwarim. Fifteen members of the Liberal Party joined the government to vote for Hlenderia’s application.
This wordplay, clear in Hlenderian, can become lost in translation. Darsi’s first name, “Saharu-madis”, translates to “Great Regret” and is said to be in reference to his behavior as a young man after his first hunt. ↩︎