Ken OplingerÆs ZPT, whose members werenÆt citizens yet, asked all parties for a few Cosâ seats so they could join political life. To their shock, the Opposition refused to part with even a single seat, so the PC was left to hand over a seat to each ZPT member. The King named Oplinger, the most active Opposition figure, and publisher of LÆAvîntguárd, to serve as Opposition Leader once his citizenship was approved. Other Leftists denounced this as a fiendish plot; Sandee Prachel called it ôa definite chess move to factionalize the Left,ö while Lorentz ranted about it being ôan attempt by the King to make Talossa into a one party stateö! Apparently the ZPT was not sufficiently insane; the Left wrote them off as PC collaborators. The King finally yanked OplingerÆs nomination in the face of Left-wing blandishments. Lorentz then flip-flopped and joined the ZPT.
Not that the Government was any more united. On 8 May, cybercritics Jahn and Nathan Freeburg teamed up to create a ôTalossa For Talossans Frontö (TFTF) that warned ôitÆs all overö for Talossa if Cybercits were allowed equal rights; Jahn warned that they would somehow impede TalossaFests or other local RT social functions. He blasted Cybercits, and the King, for their ôseemingly unbridled arroganceö (citing the term ôsnail-mailö). Chris Collins laughed at the non-Cybers, calling them ôAmish,ö but the ZPT reacted with horror, calling the TFTF ôNazisö for discriminating against legitimate Talossans, and warning Jahn might try exterminating the Cybercits. Madison as always positioned himself in the middle, denouncing Jahn for pinning ôlittle yellow computersö on their coats but criticizing the ôrampant paranoia at both extremes.ö
PM Toumayan saw JahnÆs antics as a direct affront to his government, in which Jahn held several portfolios. He suspended Jahn from his posts on 13 May. Jahn responded by moderating and booted Freeburg out of his own TFTF. At PC HQ, Jahn and Madison hammered out a set of vague compromises and Jahn was restored to office, but he was soon attacking BenÆs Berber Project, a ôscholarlyö defence of the idea that ancient Berbers settled Talossa. Like a decade earlier, Jahn blasted this ôbaldfaced Berber balderdash.ö Jahn soon wrote a triumphalist history of the old TNP, plotted with the COPÆs Matthias Muth to oppose Madison and Toumayan on Cybercits and Berbers, and even encouraged MuthÆs abortive scheme to toss Justice Wes Erni off the Uppermost Cort so Muth could attain his lifeÆs ambition: a seat on the Cort.
Meanwhile, Madison and Jahn were both getting fed up with Geoff Toumayan for having done little since his April re-election (beyond reacting to Jahn crises). When Ben and Jahn began hunting for a new PM, however, this changed abruptly. Geoff issued a long speech on 17 July blasting Jahn for disloyalty and Cyberphobia. He denounced JahnÆs glib dismissal of the Berber Project, and let Talossa know he was upset that Jahn, the Culture Minister in a PC government, was obstructing the KingÆs efforts to promote RT culture. He even asked Jahn to quit the PC. Støtanneu publicized all these disputes, and the ZPT took good advantage of them, painting Toumayan quite falsely as ôBenÆs puppetö and issuing bitter attacks on Madison personally in an effort to prove itself to the Talossan Left. All this irked the Tories and convinced them that whatever else, they really did want to win. Their emergency party seance of 23 July 1996 was, as LÆAvîntguárd proclaimed, a ôlove-fest.ö Jahn, who found he couldnÆt trust the opposition any more than he could trust the PC, returned to the fold. ôItÆs much more fun to crush the opposition,ö Toumayan declared.
On 17 August ten Talossans gathered for TalossaFest and a Living Cosâ, including Secretary of State Sean Hert, who drove more than 500 km to join the festivities. Oplinger participated by phone from California; the social wall between Cybercits and Old Growth Talossans seemed to fade away.
The positive spirit was rapidly broken in September when a committee led by Matthias Muth began modestly rewriting the 1988 Constituziun in light of the countryÆs recent changes. The ZPT denounced every minor change backed by the PC (or the status quo, if the PC endorsed that) as a plot to ôgive Ben more power.ö Nathan Freeburg used the occasion to demand the PC form a coalition with his COP, proclaiming himself an ôauthoritarian conservativeö who wanted to ôlegislate life and rule it! How can you help us rule?ö Toumayan laughed him off and a firestorm of bad press forced Freeburg to quit Talossa (temporarily). COP member Brendan Duddy quit for good.
In November the RT began its first election in Cyberspace, run by its new Australian Secretary of State, Evan Gallagher. A united Opposition blasted King RobertÆs sister and other less active Talossans as ôPC pocket votes,ö and urged their removal from Talossa for the crime of ôinactivityö in a letter written by Muth which Ben called ôalmost racist.ö Tom Buffone called the PC ôthe only liberal party left in Talossaö and called the letterÆs ZPT co-signatories ôNazisö for discriminating against legitimate Talossans. Oplinger then retracted his support and vowed to pack Talossa with his own pocket votes recruited to ôgive the ZPT the votes it needsö to win future elections! In the resulting furor, Oplinger quit as head of the ZPT (and killed off LÆAvîntguard); the easy-going Mark Pendl became ZPT leader but not in time to rescue the OppositionÆs sizzling chestnuts. Unbelievably the PC was re-elected on 14 December 1996 with 56% of the vote over five frustrated minor parties, and Geoff Toumayan became the first PM in RT history to win three successive mandates--thanks largely to voter backlash against the ôpocket votes letter.ö The COP had blown its second election in a row.