Raphael, Prince of Soussen

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Raphael
Prince of Soussen
10th Prime Minister of Ebenthal
Assumed office
29 December 2019
MonarchArthur II
Preceded byFilipe Saint
Succeeded byFernando Toledo
Regent of Ebenthal
In office
27 September 2019 – 29 December 2019
Monarchvacant
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Minister of War
In office
30 August 2019 – 27 September 2019
Prime MinisterYuri Balten
Preceded byRaphael Viana
Succeeded byRicardo Souto
Peer of the Realm (until 8 March 2021)
Member of the House of Councillors
In office
20 January 2016 – 22 January 2022
ConstituencyErzfelsen
Minister of the Interior
Assumed office
10 September 2021
Prime MinisterHenri Sãens
The Baron of Sommerlath
Preceded byThe Marchioness of Zerrenthin
Member of the House of Aristocrats
Assumed office
22 January 2024
Personal details
Born10 December 1997 (1997-12-10) (age 26)
Barbacena, Brazil
Political partyModerate Party (2014-2022)
New Democrats
OccupationCivil servant
Noble familySousa-Soussen
ReligionRoman Catholic

Raphael Sousa, Prince of Soussen (Barbacena, Brazil, 10 December 1996) is an Ebenthali politician, nobleman, and military man who served as Regent of Ebenthal during the 2019 interregnum and later as the country's 10th Prime Minister. A member of parliament for Minen since 2016, Raphael was the last President of the Moderate Party before its dissolution, having joined the New Democratic Party right away. As of 2023, he remains one of Ebenthal's most influential politicians and holding the Ministry of the Interior post for two straight cabinets.

Member of the Brazilian Navy, Raphael became an Ebenthali politician in 2016 when King Arthur I appoint him Peer in the country's former unicameral aristocratic legislature for the current province of Minen. He also joined the Royal Ebenthali Army rising to the ranking of General. As a military man, he participated in the Ebenthali-Brazilian War and the Ebenthali Civil War for which he was widely recognized for his participation that earned him his appointment in 2018 Minister of War by the Balten cabinet. Raphael played a crucial role in the Mateusian Crisis that unfolded after the abdication of Arthur I. Initially pledging allegiance to the new King Mateus I, Raphael managed to convince to army to side with the politicians against their increasingly authoritarian monarch in what was the key to Matthew's dethronement. Subsequently Raphael was elected Regent of Ebenthal by parliament and was responsible for appointing Arthur van der Bruyn as King of Ebenthal, later serving as its first Prime Minister.

Biography

Early life and education

Raphael was born in Barbacena, Minas Gerais, Brazil, being the second of three children of a relatively wealthy family (considered by Brazilian standards to be upper middle class). His father was from Rio de Janeiro which eventually caused the family to move to that city. There, Raphael attended high school at the Rezende-Rammel Institute where he met Arthur Beato and Arthur van der Bruyn, who would later introduce him to micronationalism.

After graduating as a mechanical technician, Raphael was approved in the competition for the Armada Corporate Technical Staff, entering the Brazilian Navy as Third Sergeant in 2017. The following year he began to study mechanical engineering at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, graduating in 2021.

Career

Raphael joined the Armada Corporate Technical Staff of the Brazilian Navy as Third Sergeant in 2017 through a technical exam of admission. Since then he perfomed his military duties at the Naval Complex of Itaguaí as a technician of submarines, having worked at the Brazilian Nuclear Submarine Álvaro Alberto. In 2019 he was promoted to supervising technician at his local division. Nonetheless, Raphael left his job in the navy, initially citing personal reasons, later revealed to be a sense of mental exhaustion due to the accumulation of responsibilities in the sector. In May 2019 he was discharged following his approval in a public exam to become a civil servant performing mechanic duties for the Brazilian Navy, but not as a member of it.

Micronational politics

Raphael firstly became interested in micronationalism from 2013 to 2014, when his friend Arthur van der Bruyn founded the Kingdom of Roschfallen. Raphael, however, did not take any position in Roschfallen, despite being offered, due to lack of free time and his dedication to his life projects. Still, he came into contact with many other micronationalists and developed an admiration and curiosity for the practice. He was finally persuaded to become a micronationalist in 2016 when King Arthur I of Ebenthal conferred the title of Duke of appointed him Peer of the Realm at the Conclave of Ebenthal , Ebenthal's then parliament. A Brazilian military at the time, Raphael joined the Ebenthali military and was tasked with overseeing structural reforms to the Ebenthal military while rising through the military ranks to the rank of General.

During the Ebenthali-Brazilian War, which was still raging when Raphael joined the Ebenthali army, he worked as a military adviser to the government and field aide to King Arthur I, a purely nominal position. His main participation in the conflict boiled down to advice on increasing the defense of the territory invaded by the Brazilian forces, in addition to some legal advice on the lack of clarity in the definition of property of the Brazilian State. Later Raphael also took an active role in the Ebenthali Civil War commanding a cyber attack division against the rebel forces. At the time, Raphael could not publicly admit his participation in the acts due to his connection to the Brazilian armed forces, which could incur his dismissal due to the fact that cyber attacks do not have legal clarity in Brazilian law. It was only after leaving the Armed Forces that Raphael was recognized for his participation in the conflict. In 2018 he was appointed Minister of War by the Prime Minister The Count of Balten, being subsequently appointed in two other cabinets.

In early 2019 Raphael founded the Holy Association of Catholic Ebenthalis (HACE), an organization for faithful Catholics to gather and discuss Ebenthali policies. It was the first religious institution established in Ebenthal. However the organization ultimatelly played a critical role in the decrease of trust between the army and the government when King Mateus I rose to the throne and immediatly extinguished the HACE through a royal decree.

Role in the Mateusian Crisis

Shortly after the clash with Raphael and the HACE, King Mateus inadvertently started the Mateusian Crisis by openly calling for the transformation the country into an absolute monarchy while centralizing as much power as possible. The monarch by then had some powerful allies, including many members of the Conservative Party, and he thought himself able to ignore the country's institutions' pleas for a democratic solution for the ongoing political crisis while keeping the politicians under his grasp. Raphael initially protested the government's actions on ignoring institutions, but was silenced and consented, since he had sworn alligeance to the new monarch. Nonetheless, as King Mateus appointed the Count of Lahad as Prime Minister, he in turn kept Raphael in charge of war affairs, hoping to gain from his respect and military know-how, even though he realized that Raphael's military experience could never be replicated in a micronational scale.

Throughout almost the entire crisis, Raphael remained nominally loyal to the Government – according to him – due to his sense "of debt towards the former King Arthur I, as he [Mateus] was his brother and successor", but also hoping that a reasonable outcome could've been reached and actively working for it by keeping secret communication channels with opponents to Mateus's rule. As the King issued illegal decrees and both the Tribune of Truth and Parliament kept on being ignored while compelling for the Sovereign to come to terms with law, the heads of both institutions issued a common statement calling for Mateus's spontaneous or forced abdication; as a Peer of the Realm and a member of the Government, Raphael refused to vote and had his vote counted as abstension. To counter the matter, the King then called an emergency meeting of his cabinet on which most members advised for the dissolution of both the legislative and judiciary institutions. Raphael, however, suggested to the King that he should talk to the Lord Speaker and the Seneschal and come to favorable terms in order to put a "happy reasonable ending to this chaotic situation" and "in order to preserve the realm", but his suggestion were ignored by a visibly annoyed king.

Then in 20 September 2020, as Mateus had dissolved Ebenthali institutions, Raphael finally broke with the government and used his influence to turn the enlisted citizens-in-exercise, members of government and armed forces, definetely against the monarch, claiming there was no solution other than the overthrowning of the House of Beato. This immediatly prompted the Lord Speaker, The Duke of Grünewald, until then divided by the situation as he had been a friend to King Mateus, to issue a cojoint act with the Tribune ot Truth dissolving the cabinet and officialy deposing King Mateus. Days following the crisis's end, the Duke of Grünewald, who was pardoned for his role in Mateus's government, and the Count of Gesetzhausen offered Raphael to take the Crown of Ebenthal, but he declined the offer and instead was appointed Regent of Ebenthal.

Post crisis

Following crisis and his tenure as Regent of Ebenthal, Raphael was appointed Prime Minister of Ebenthal by the new King he placed on the throne, Arthur II, the former King of Roschfallen. As Prime Minister, the Duke of Aureanburgh presided over the most imporant reformations King Arthur II had started on the country since he took the throne, such as the change of symbols, the incorporation of new territories, the foudation of the Conference of Santiago and of the Brazilian sector, Ebenthal's brief entry at the Konmalehth and the enormous lap in diplomatic relations and influence taken by the country under the reign of a far more influential monarch.

Fairly busy with personal matters and apathetic to the micronationalism by the end of his government, Raphael was dismissed from office when the Conservative Party became the majority party at parliament. Since then, he has fulfilling his initial role as a parlamentarian, although have maintained his position as a member of the Privy Council. In March 2021 he schematized the coalition between his Moderate Party and the Worker's Party led by Gabriel Amorim, The Duchess of Guterfolg in order for her to assume as Prime Minister of Ebenthal. By doing so, he had himself appointed Councillor Speaker of the House of Councillors. In June 2021 he was appointed to the role of Rector of the Royal Academy of General Knowledge. That same year, following the election of Henri Sãens to premiership, Raphael was appointed Minister of the Interior. Holding that post, he implemented and supervised most of the internal legislation passed by the Sãens government, and was considered by Malmundian Mail to be the most powerful politician after Sãens, and the most powerful minister in the government. Nevertheless, in late 2022, after and as a direct consequence of the 2022 Neo-Swiss crisis, the Sãens government found its days numbered, and the Prime Minister clashed with Aureaburgh over what actions the Moderate Party should take to deal with the loss of membership to the newly created New Democratic Party. Finally, both politicians broke with the fall of the Sãens cabinet, and Raphael dissolved the Moderate Party, immediately joining the New Democrats and remaining as Interior Minister in Rupert Ruschel's New Democratic Cabinet.

Titles, styles and honors

Titles and styles

  • 20 January 2016 – 22 January 2024: His Grace The Duke of Aureanburgh
  • 22 January 2024 – present: His Highness The Prince of Soussen

Honors

See also

References

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