First Minister of Essexia

First Minister
First Minister ;
	Seal of the; First Minister of Essexia
	First Minister of Essexia
Appointer	Monarch of Essexia

The First Minister of Essexia was the head of the government and Cabinet of Essexia. They also held the position of Leader of the Parliament of Essexia.

There have been 14 First Ministers in Essexian history, with tenures ranging from 3 days (Lord Jamie) to almost 260 days (Earl Finn). The last person to hold the role was the Rt. Hon. Jack MP.

The position was replaced by the Commissar General of Essexia on the 14th September 2021.

History

The inaugural First Minister of Essexia was Earl Finn, who was appointed by Emperor Terry of Essexia on the 19th of September after the Commonwealth of Essexia was formed from the Federation of Essexia, as Prime Minister of Essexia. He served until the 1st of January 2019, when Essexia became an Absolute Monarchy as Earl Finn resigned in protest.

Lord Chris then joined the Liberal Socialist and Cooperative Party so that he could become the next First Minister, as he was very popular with the Parliament. Following the establishment of the Essexian Political Commonwealth, and his departure from the LibSocs, Lord Chris resigned his post.

Following this, Earl Finn, being a fellow LibSoc, became the First Minister of Essexia. On the 22 May 2019 Earl Finn announced that on the 16th of June he would end his tenure as First Minister, as well as implying that they had intentions to leave the Essexian Senate. His coalition partners, the Royalists, announced that Lord Jacob would likely be replacing the Earl as First Minister. However, Earl Finn agreed to resign earlier, on the 26th May, as Lord Matthew of the Royalists threatened to end force him out of parliament if he did not accept.

On the 26th May 2019 Lord Matthew, party leader of the Royalist Party, announced that Lord Jamie would become Earl Finn's successor at midnight. Due to Lord Matthew's later disapproval of the Jamie administration and disagreement with Earl Finn, Lord Matthew and other Royalist rebels, supporting Lord Jacob to become FM, broke away from the Royalist Party and formed the Old Guard Party.

Made of mostly original citizens, but also some new, the Old Guard Coalition hoped to get the seats and take power. But due to Essexian parliamentary rules, when they resigned from the Royalists they would have to fight a by-election to keep their seats. Nonetheless, the Old Guards still took away Lord Jamie's parliamentary majority until the by-elections. Due to misunderstanding of the electoral law by the Lord Matthew, it was claimed that after Lord Sam resigned from Parliament his seat would go to a by-election, which it would not, it would go to another member of the Liberal Socialists. Lord Matthew eventually convinced Emperor Terry to declare marshal law and have Lord Jacob take charge that way, as he was Minister of Defence. So Jacob became Lord Commissar Jacob after this, and thus appointed members of the 6 members of the Old Guard to the positions of power in the new military government. Jacob would go on to have the second-longest tenure as First Minister, and fundamentally altered the political landscape of Essexia.

Following the events of the Grey Weekend, Earl Finn once again became First Minister, as appointed by the Rhino Alliance. However, he was ultimately replaced by Lord Jamie again after the 2020 Essexian general election. Despite running with the Rhinos for the general election, Jamie opted to switch alliances to the Giraffe Concordat on the 25th March 2020.

Lord Sam became First Minister on the 30th May 2020, following the events of Snakey Saturday. Having overseen Essexia for over a hundred days, Sam resigned after the signing of the Third Constitution of the Commonwealth of Essexia.

After the signing of the Third Constitution of Essexia on the 11th September 2020 in Greater Danbury, Ben H formed a new Government as he had garnered the support to do so from almost all MPs to do so, despite his Government minority and lack of leadership experience. His government was formed with the support of the Giraffe Concordat and was initially backed by a super-majority of MPs. He stood down on the 19th February 2021 after the events of Hot Pink Friday.

Ben recommended that Jack D, a previous First Minister and leader of the ruling Giraffe Concordat, offer to form a Government. Jack did so, and Emperor James accepted. However, after just 11 days, the Greens were able to take power under the Rt. Hon. Newton MP following Becky's, Cracky's and Ben's decisions to leave the Giraffe Concordat.

Despite promising drastic reforms and a revitalisation of the nation, the Greens oversaw a period of inactivity until the 3rd May 2021, when Newton stepped down. Becky, as Second Minister, became Acting First Minister. A few hours later, Emperor James appointed Jack (Leader of the Royalists and the Giraffe Concordat) as First Minister as he was the only politician who displayed serious interest in taking up the role.

At the start of Jack's third term as First Minister, he set forward three goals on his agenda: Streamlining the cabinet, putting 'Boots in Mersea 2021', and greater foreign influence. His term came during his Chairmanship of the Grand Unified Micronational. His term started with efforts to update the MicroWiki after a long period of neglect under the Greens. He was able to win a Royalist majority in the 2021 Essexian general election, and formed the 4th Parliament of Essexia, continuing his term as the 14th First Minister and starting the 4th Giraffe Ministry. He was unable to implement serious reforms however, due to a lack of activity, decrease in population and the COVID-19 epidemic still hindering certain activities.

On the 14th September 2021, the military junta government (Backed by the Armed Forces and Supreme Justice) took power and dismissed the First Minister, the position being replaced by the Commissar General. As Jack was partly responsible for the coup, he made no attempts to retain his position as First Minister. This ended approximately 1,244 days, or 3 years 4 months and 25 days, of Essexia having a Prime/First Minister as the Head of Government.

Powers

The powers of the First Minister, until the Parliamentary Constituency and Prerogative Act, were largely ambiguous and uncodified. With the Emperor holding ultimate sovereign powers, there was a persistent debate over the authority the office of the First Minister had in decision making and policy. The Prerogative Act in 2019 clarified a few of the constitutional prerogatives given to the First Minister from the Office of the Emperor. They included;

The power to dissolve Parliament and call an election
The right to appoint his own Minister of Foreign Affairs, without Parliamentary interference
The right to receive foreign dignitaries and representatives (instead of the Emperor doing so) whereby he sees it fit to do so
The right to declare war (although, by convention, this may require consultation in parliament and the wording in the act is unclear.)
The right to appoint and remove Ministers of the Crown
The duties of the supreme commander of the military, with executive authority over all actors but the Emperor
The right to lead and be the executive in the Essexian National Order
The power to call national referendums
The power to declare martial law
The right to implement legislation
The power to appoint and remove the Supreme Judge

First Ministers

In order of chronology

The parties are as follows: Progressive Worker's Party/Liberal Socialist and Cooperative Party, Royalist Party, Old Guard Party, Weeaboo Rights Party, The Greens and Co-Operatives

		Term in Office	First Minister	Party	Government	Notes
1		19 April 2018 to 1 January 2019 257 days	Earl Finn*	Liberal Socialist	Hawarden Ministry	Inaugural First Minister. Emperor Terry's first First Minister. Technically the longest tenure as First Minister. Lack of records to confirm this however, and start of term preceded first ever Constitution (The Constitution of the Empire of Essexia, c. 20th July 2018).
2		1 January 2019 to 12 February 2019 42 days	Lord Chris	Liberal Socialist/Royalist	Essexian Political Commonwealth I
3		12 February 2019 to 27 May 2019 104 days	Earl Finn	Liberal Socialist	Essexian Political Commonwealth II	First First Minister to serve two non-consecutive terms.
4		27 May 2019 to 21 July 2019 57 days	Lord Jamie	Royalist	Jamie Ministry	First Royalist First Minister. First to be elected. Elected via 2019 Essexian General Election, to this day still the largest mandate a single party has ever received.
5		22 July 2019 to 5 January 2020 167 days	Lord Jacob	Old Guard	Jacob Ministry	First Old Guard Party First Minister.
6		5 January 2020 to 14 February 2020 44 days	Earl Finn	LSC	Rhino Ministry	First to serve three terms. According to what is recorded on this page, this third term put Finn's days in office as FM over one full year (In total, 405 days).
7		14 February 2020 to 17 February 2020 3 days	Lord Jamie	Royalist	Transferral Government	Shortest tenure.
8		17 February 2020 to 3 March 2020 15 days	Earl Jack	Old Guard	Interim Giraffe Government
9		3 March 2020 to** 30 May 2020 _{88 days}	Earl Jamie	Royalist	Rhino Ministry II (3 March 2020 - 25 March 2020) Giraffe Ministry (25 March 2020 - 30 May 2020)	Elected via 2020 Essexian General Election.
10		30 May 2020 to 11 September 2020 104 days	Lord Sam	Progressive Workers' Party	Rhino Ministry III
11		11 September 2020 to 19 February 2021 161 days	Lord Ben	Weeaboo Rights Party	Weeaboo Ministry	First Weeaboo Rights Party First Minister. Oversaw the first changing of the Monarch. Emperor Terry's last First Minister.
12		19 February 2021 to 2 March 2021 11 days	Rt. Hon. Jack MP	Royalist	Giraffe Ministry II	Emperor James's first new First Minister. First and only time a FM has served multiple terms under two different parties (First as OGP, second as Royalist).
13	File:Newtonvonuberquie 1.jpg	2 March 2021 to 3 May 2021 62 days	Rt. Hon. Newton MP	The Greens	von Uberquie Ministry	First Green First Minister. First non-Essexian born to become First Minister.
14		3 May 2021 to 14 September 2021 134 days	Rt. Hon. Jack	Royalist	Giraffe Ministry III (3 May 2021 - 16 July 2021) Giraffe Ministry IV (16 July 2021 - 14 September 2021)	The 2021 Essexian general election, on the 11th July 2021, was the first time Jack was elected to be FM. It had the lowest turnout of any previous Essexian general election. Last First Minister

*For Earl Finn's first term the role was known as Prime Minister and the senate had greater power as it was prior to the Monarchical Powers Act 2018.
**Earl Jamie changed alliance part way through his term on 25/03/2020, from Rhino to Giraffe.

In order of longest tenures


Name	Total time as First Minister	No. of Terms
Finn	405 days \| 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 2 days	3
Jacob	167 days \| 5 months, 2 weeks	1
Ben	161 days \| 5 months, 1 week, 1 day	1
Jack	160 days \| 5 months, 1 week	4
Jamie	148 days \| 4 months, 3 weeks, 5 days	4
Sam	104 days \| 3 months, 1 week, 5 days	1
Newton	62 days \| 2 months	1
Chris	42 days \| 1 month, 1 week, 4 days	1

In order of parties with longest tenures


Name	Total time with First Ministers in office	No. of First Ministers	No. of Terms
PWP/LSC/LS	551 days \| 1 year, 6 months, 5 days	3	5
Royalist	293 days \| 9 months, 20 days	2	7
OGP	182 days \| 6 months, 1 day	2	2
WRP	161 days \| 5 months, 10 days	1	1
The Greens	62 days \| 2 months	1	1

Timeline

Timeline of First Ministers, 19 April 2018 - 14 September 2021.
First Minister Timeline with Monarchs timeline, 26 December 2017 - 14 September 2021.