Let the Voters Decide

[QMCO5]

Toward the end of No Surrender, No Retreat Sheridan engages in his best sales manner to convince the Earth Force Captains to defect from Clark, appealing to them to clean out Night Watch and the rest of the EarthGov scum and "let the voters decide" whether they were right. Very laudable sentiment. But, it didn't exactly turn out that way. The voters didn't get a chance for a new election. What Sheridan didn't count on was Clark committing suicide. Perhaps the Earth Alliance Charter contained a similar succession provision as our Constitution, allowing Luchenko to step into the Presidency (and power vacuum) without any input from the liberators or the voters. So once again JMS infuses his story with irony, so that instead of Sheridan and his liberators cleaning house in EarthGov, he is threatened with a court-martial is he doesn't get out of Dodge. The story has one more ironic twist with the "voters" in the Leaque of Non-Aligned Worlds making Sheridan President of the universe (metaphorically speaking), but his agreement to respect each member world's right to self-government means he still can't do any house cleaning. To paraphrase Bester, "all that power, and not a government you can control."

QMCO5

 

[vacantlook]

The voters didn't get a chance for a new election. What Sheridan didn't count on was Clark committing suicide. Perhaps the Earth Alliance Charter contained a similar succession provision as our Constitution, allowing Luchenko to step into the Presidency (and power vacuum) without any input from the liberators or the voters.

I'm under the impression that Luchenko both filled in until an election was held and then also was elected to the office itself. Her stepping in and handling of the events after Clark's mania and suicide probably gave her a significant boost in popularity enabling her to pull in many votes.

 

[RW7427]

It doesn't specifically say that Luchenko was voted into office, but I tend to agree with VL. I think she assumed the Presidency once Clark killed himself, and then she was probably voted in after Clark's term was up had he still been alive.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

We don't really know what happened in the months after Clark's suicide, but I think it safe to assume that democracy was restored, and that elections were held. Whether Luchenko ran, and was elected, or not, would only be speculation. But, I think that it is almost impossible to believe that anything less than the restoration of democracy would have been accepted.

 

[fisheggs]

And one of her first crisis would have been the Teep war! Maybe thats why you dont hear much about it (yet ) It's a story waiting to be filmed. Hopefully.

 

[vacantlook]

Luchenko is President during A Call To Arms and Crusade, which is six years after "Objects In Rest" right? So that would mean Luchenko has been in office for seven years; I don't think she could stay in office that long without having had some form of vote to keep her there.

 

[GaribaldisHair]

Just for the record, the ISN anchor (played by Maggie Egan) describes her as Acting President Luchenko during Rising Star. I can't imagine that situation would be allowed to continue for 7 years.

 

[2aMageing]

As O.K. as Luchenko seemed to be....wasn't clark supposed to have filled most all important posts with his own kind of people??? So where in the political chain did she come from?? Wasn't most of the true government swept away during martial law?? If she isn't a Clark sympathizer, then how did people know who was O.K. to plug in prior to the next election? This thought has just now occured to me and will now probably fester for awhile......

 

[vacantlook]

Maybe she was the Speaker in a House of Congress. When Clark stepped forward to take the Presidency with Santiago's death, someone else would have stepped in to be his Vice President, right? I assume that individual, being close to Clark would have been disallowed from assuming the Presidency by the Congress once it reformed after Clark's suicide. So, maybe then the next in line after the Vice President is the Speaker of some House, and that that person was Luchenko. With them being from two seperate branches of government, she could have easily been of a different political party and be at the head of that branch of government. Clark's disbanding Congress would have put her out of power with all the Congresspeople, but with its reformation after Clark, she would then come back into the picture.

Just one theory among who knows how many.

 

[Elenopa]

'Deconstruction of Falling Stars' mentions 2262 being an election year, so Luchenko was obviously elected.

 

[Fas]

Wasn't she president of Russia?

 

[KoshFan]

That sounds about right... and yes, she was probably elected, much as Lyndon Johnson was elected after JFK was killed.

 

[Sindatur]

Actually, I kinda got the impression, that was like a Political Party (Leader of the Russian Consortium, I see as being like Leader of the Democratic Party).

I've gotten the impression that with a World Government in B5 time, that there were no longer individual Country Presidents, but rather ruling representatives of those Countries in the World Government.

 

[PillowRock]

I was always under the impression that the "Russian Consortium" was still an administrative unit, not a political party. I believe that what the official listing for where Ivanova was from.

Being President of the Russian Consortium in that future EarthGov would be somewhat analogous to being the Governor of New York in the present day United States.

 

[grumbler]

I always was under the impression that she was in power after Clarke died not as a "natural successor" but rather as an assertion of power by the Russian Consortium, the largest remaining legitimate political body after Clarke "nazified" the western equivelent. She herself did not act directly against Clarke, as did Senator Crosby (who had some very Eurasian-looking followers, so i don't think she was American), so she wasn't swept in as a popular hero.

Luchenko was extremely cutthroat in "Falling Stars" - more so than was necessary for the fully legitimate successor to Clarke. Her desperation to see Sheridan neutralized in Earth politics tells me that she saw him as a threat to her position, which she wouldn't if she was fully legit. In other words, she saw Sheridan as having fully a legitimate claim on the office she held as she herself had.

I agree that she was subsequently elected to office.

 

[vacantlook]

I can't say I've ever seen Luchenko as feeling directly threatened by Sheridan in terms of her position, but more of she felt she had to get Sheridan out to satisfy those within the Earth populous that thought Sheridan didn't have the right to organize and lead a revolt against the government. That it was those in the populous that she felt pressure from, not from Sheridan himself.

That's just my take on it.

 

[grumbler]

But Luchenko gets to appear (in light of Clarke's obvious insanity) much like the French Government in Exile in 1944 Paris if she is the sole legit successor. Why does it resemble the 1942-43 struggle over "who was legitimate" if the question was not around?

If Luchenko was firmly in command of legitimacy then her behavior towards Sheridan is simply inexcusable, since he was responsible for overthrowing Clarke and preventing (unaided by her or, effectively, Earthforce) the murder of hundreds of millions.

That would be a real slap at JMS and his writing style. A scared Luchenko would be cut-throat. A confident Luchenko who would be so cutthroat as to threaten Sheridan and his followers for no reason other than to satisfy protocol would be a monster - and the story would thus have an unhappy ending.

 

[2aMageing]

I always was under the impression that she was in power after Clarke died not as a "natural successor" but rather as an assertion of power by the Russian Consortium, the largest remaining legitimate political body after Clarke "nazified" the western equivelent. She herself did not act directly against Clarke, as did Senator Crosby (who had some very Eurasian-looking followers, so i don't think she was American), so she wasn't swept in as a popular hero.

This was more or less my read of the situation as well. It felt alot like she had seized the position after a fashion, and probably with key supporters (not unlike after the Centari leader had died and Lord Refa capitolized on "moving his people into place") and it's hard to say what regions would be wielding the most influence at that point in time but the Russian Consortium seems as likely as any.

And such a seizure of power would explain her rather desperate air in how she greated their liberator Sheridan.
She may even have been a key player in General Hague's "conspiracy of light" and if that were so hen there would be even more parallels between the Centauri change of power and the Earth Alliance change of power.

I was just hoping there was additional info I was not aware of in the hopes of nailing it down with a little more certainty........

 

[RW7427]

As O.K. as Luchenko seemed to be....wasn't clark supposed to have filled most all important posts with his own kind of people??? So where in the political chain did she come from?? Wasn't most of the true government swept away during martial law?? If she isn't a Clark sympathizer, then how did people know who was O.K. to plug in prior to the next election? This thought has just now occured to me and will now probably fester for awhile......

Maybe she was really a conniving bitch who only pretended to like Clark and his policies so she could have his job if something ever happened to him.

 

[hypatia]

That would be unheard of in politics.

(I think RW is onto something here...)

Seriously, I'd tend to suspect she was dealing with a very devastated group of humans at this point. She saw Sheridan as an obstacle, no matter how unfair she simply wanted this problem to go away.

Actually, he did.

Just not in the way expected.