378.06 // Galactic Governors provide aid where Chancellor fails.
Pandemonium grips the Galaxy, strikes and riots are being reported from the lower levels of Coruscant, to the trading guilds of the Hydian Way. Manufacturers and business owners are closing their doors, firing workers or cutting pay drastically. After days of seclusion upon hearing the disastrous news, Chancellor Griff has reminded the people of the Republic that, “we are all in this together” during his first morning address. However, the Chancellor has yet to explain any plans to fix or halt the damages of the recession, the Government refusing to make any comment on the matter, leaving industrial leaders in panic.
Despite the call for unity from the Chancellor, strikes, disorder and riots have only increased in number. In the worst affected regions, such as the industrialised mid and outer rim, Galactic Governors have been providing foodstuffs and low-paid work for the poorest in society. Holonews had the chance to speak with Laa’ken Ruun, Senator and Galactic Governor of Bothan Space and the Hutt Border, who was busy personally handing out fruit to malnourished Twi’lek families while being interviewed.
“It’s horrible what crises we find ourselves in with the Republic’s leadership, and I truly feel for the suffering of so many that have not only lost work, but will be forced to poverty for, what could be a fatal amount of time.
Importantly, he commented on the Chancellor’s lack of social reform, despite a long term of office and re-election, stating: “The Republic must do more for social reform and centralisation. The people of the Republic deserve more opportunity than to live in squalor, especially with so many ‘fatcats’ on Coruscant.”
Governor Ruun, following a platform that has frequently advocated Galaxy-wide social reform and centralisation, has found himself becoming more and more popular in many areas of the Galaxy. However, intellectuals and politicians have criticised Governor Ruun for ‘populism’ and ‘inciting industrial unrest’. Senator Sadon Arkanus, an ex-Navy Admiral named the ‘Battle-Axe of Bastion’, has been a vocal critic of Governor Ruun, as well as several others he has deemed “the Republic’s silent Oligarchs.”
In an exclusive interview from his private estate on Coruscant, Senator Arkanus explained: “The work of the Republic’s silent Oligarchs has only served to undermine the Republic politically, and economically. There is a class of hard working, deserving, key industrialists based around the Galaxy, that are having to make necessary cutbacks, but are being squeezed by the boot of Cartel-like Governors, playing at being a part of the Republic.”