3217 Press Releases

A digest of recent official government press releases, by reporting period.

T145

(c) Martian Press Syndicate, 3217 - Resignation of Senator Banderas
Senator Antoinette Banderas has announced that she is stepping down as chair of the Interstellar Coordination Committee (the de facto Martian chief executive) and Foreign Affairs Representative. While she continues to deny allegations of impropriety in office relating to the Sirian AI crisis, she has admitted that the swirl of negative media stories has become "a distraction" from the business of government. The move also comes after cabinet colleagues, including those in her own party, but particularly from coalition partners the Central Democratic and Free Mars parties, have distanced themselves from the Senator and the allegations against her. Banderas has served in a variety of senior positions in the MAFC cabinet for 15 years and been the 'public face' of the MAFC during the past seven, as leader of a centre-right coalition. She has also indicated that she will be stepping down as leader of the Mars Colonial Growth Faction (MCGF), prompting a leadership contest just a year ahead of Senate elections. In her valedictory address, Senator Banderas said that she would "continue to serve the people of Quadrant Five, who elected me to this body, as one of their Senators", but that she would "not be seeking re-election" at the end of her current term, which ends next year. However, she has also made no move to deny rumours that she might be sent as a 'special envoy' on the outgoing 'Grand Fleet' to the Chosen worlds - the sending of which she has championed for the past few years. Her MCGF colleagues have paid public tributes to the Senator, and the way that she had "returned the Outer Quadrants to the centre of Martian politics", including the Senate membership reforms that will take effect next year, but in private many speak of "judgemental lapses" that have dogged her throughout her long and colourful career.
Senator Minos Cornelius, Representative for War, has become the new chair of the ICC and Martian chief executive. A veteran of Martian politics, he leads the centre-right Central Democratic Party, and had ministerial roles under the Harness Administration (3200-3206) and Banderas Administration (3210-present). The Free Mars Party meanwhile, the smallest in the governing coalition, gains a second seat on the ICC with the selection of Senator Aiashi Hojo as Foreign Affairs Representative. A decorated veteran of the First Exterminator War, Hojo also served as Supreme Human Commander from 3201-3209, until his resignation due to pressure from the Earth Empire, and some see his choice as Foreign Affairs representative as a move calculated to reassure the public that there is no Martian "secret deal" with Earth. While Banderas was often regarded as hawkish on foreign affairs, she was also seen as flexible - perhaps too much so - in being willing to forge temporary working arrangements with a variety of other powers, rather than the alliance with the Venerians that emerged from the First Exterminator War. Many suspect that it is the detente with Earth that she pursued that was, as much as anything, responsible for her downfall. Hojo is seen as politically neutral and a patient diplomat, but is known in private to have "serious reservations" about the closer Earth-Mars relationship that Banderas pioneered.

T143

(c) Martian Press Syndicate, 3217 - Banderas faces questions over Sirius AI "cover up"
Martian chief executive Senator Banderas is at the centre of an increasing political storm in Martian politics over an alleged "cover-up" of intelligence failures regarding the alleged Sirian AI, destroyed by Earther marines as part of a joint Earth-Mars operation in 3214. While the Martian government has always maintained that it believes there was an AI on Sirius, the intelligence surrounding this has been called into question by inquiries in both the MAFC and documents released by the Union of Xyon. Now a series of secret internal memoranda leaked by a whistleblower within the MAFC government purports to show that Senator Banderas not only discovered (admittedly after the event) that the intelligence was faulty, but that the Martian government and intelligence services now believe that the entire operation was actually a plot concocted by Earher intelligence in order to provide a pretext for the destruction of Sirian military facilities and entrap the MAFC, and further, that the Senator ordered this information suppressed in order to preserve Mars' diplomatic relations with Earth, in particular joint cooperation with Earth and the UoX on the development of gravitic ships.
Senator Banderas has denied all of the allegations, and says that she continues to believe that there was an AI on Sirius, and has no reason to doubt the Earther narrative of events on Sirius. She has also said that the leaked documents are "fakes, calculated to embarrass" her, concoted by a political opponent, but the opposition Martian Liberal Welfare Party has called for a full judicial inquiry into the matter, and the polls have moved decisively against Banderas, with public calls for her to publish her confidential diplomatic correspondence to prove her innocence. Antoinette Banderas has led her federalist Mars Colonial Growth Faction in coalition with governments of both the left and the right since 3202, and has held the positions of Minister for Foreign Affairs (from 3205-6 and 3210-present) and Minister for War (from 3206-3210). Since 3210 she has been Chair of the Interstellar Coordination Committee, Mars' de facto chief executive. Her reputation has become closely entwined with her hawkish foreign affairs stance and her strong anti-AI-stance, the latter dating from her time as Supreme Councillor for Quadrant 5, when she ordered the destruction of the 'Cerebro' AI on the GFA world of Over. However, she has also been reponsible for a rapprochement with Earth in recent years which has made many Martians uneasy, and which has been exacerbated by these rumours of secret deals with what many Martians still regard as the 'Evil Empire'. While she has weathered many political storms during her career, there are signs that the fallout from the Sirius Incident may claim the scalp of one of the most remarkable of Martian politicians.