Tukundy officially declared independence at that time Tucker entered Ridgelantic territory 30 minutes after the official expiration of the ultimatum for Tucker’s forces to step down.
At around 12:30 RST, fighting broke out between Tucker and the 2nd Kramerkolonie Light Infantry Division outside of a school in Kramerkolonie, along with Forest C. F. personally, who led the Ridgelantic military as the commander in chief.
Ferrell planned an ambush of Tucker by attacking him and luring him into a fenced baseball court, where the Ridgelantic army would encircle him. After the attack began and Ferrell retreated to the court, most of the 2nd Kramerkolonie Division were hesitant to attack, only occasionally stepping in to break up direct fighting between the two, with weapons including padded baseball bats and bottled water. During multiple instances Tucker attempted to capture Ferrell, including an instance where he attempted to trap him in a small dugout, to no avail. Fighting ended after thirty minutes of fighting, with Tucker surrendering in exchange for remaining in government.
After increasingly harsh demands against Max Livert have been made by Drew Tucker, along with controversy around Tucker attempting to ‘arrest’ Livert, The Ridgelantic government withdrew their negotiations with Tucker.
Tucker has since demanded the terms of negotiation be reinstated, however him moving on his position is unlikely.
At the height of Ridgelantic political tensions, Democratic Opposition politician Drew Tucker declared a civil war after receiving “bomb threats against Tukundy” from Ridgelantic politicians in the Local Motive and Best of Men/Boys.
Tucker has sent Tukundy into a state of emergency and has made preparations in case of a land invasion. The Ridgelantic federal government has condemned this sudden escalation on behalf of Tucker, claiming that peace is threatened and that supposed threats against Tukundy were exaggerated and satirical, and that Tucker’s life was not in danger.
On behalf of the Piedmonton Times, it is believed that Tukundy will most likely secede from the Sovereign State of Ridgeland, and that the conflict will turn into a two-way civil war between Tukundy and the Ridgelantic federal government.
Six hours after Kramerkoloner elections on 8 May, a severe thunderstorm and resulting EF1 tornado hit the Ridgelantic mainland, lasting from 2:40 to 2:50 PM RST (3:40 to 3:50 EST). The EF1 Tornado, which was one of two tornadoes reported nearby Ridgelantic territory during the event, heavily damaged Ridgelantic infrastructure, especially in Kramerkolonie and Piedmonton. Most of the Ridgelantic government, which were stationed at a polling place in Kramerkolonie to monitor the elections, were forced into an unsafe shelter-in-place by local American occupational authorities. Since the incident, Ridgelantic flags have flown at half mast and the Ridgelantic government has since issued a condemnation of American occupational authorities and their management of the disaster.
On 8 May, 2024, National Assembly snap elections in Kramerkolonie began as a polling station was created at a public school in Kramerkolonie. After a turnout of 12 voters. President Forest C. F. would declare the official outcome hours later, a one seat gain for both the Sovereignty Party and Democratic Opposition respectively. During the election, the Best of Men would receive three and two votes respectively for both seats, nearly surpassing Ridgeland’s two largest political parties in the election. About six hours later, one of two EF1 tornadoes hit and severely affected mainland Ridgeland, which will be featured next article
On 18 April, 2024, Max Livert and Rami Hamad declared their plans for them and their parties (Local Motive and the Best of Men respectively) to leave the unnamed Democratic Opposition-led coalition due to a squabble over claims of being inactively assigned to the coalition without their consent.
Electoral tensions in the aftermath of the 2024 general elections have previously taken center stage in Ridgeland, especially after the Democratic Opposition claimed electoral fraud after losing elections for all seats in Piedmonton, despite predictions of a one seat gain. Conflict over electoral coalitions initially began after Rami Hamad and Max Livert both rejected the claims that their party had joined the Opposition coalition, claiming they had never verbally consented to their entry. After Max Livert refused negotiations with Tucker over possibly staying in the coalition, Tucker removed Livert from his position as leader of the Nortonburg Municipality.
“So basically, I told Drew I don’t want to join the coalition because [pauses] I just don’t want to…I was never in it to begin with, and I’d appreciate it if he respected that. And he says ‘Fine, then. You’re no longer Mayor of Nortonburg’.”
Max Livert, interview by the Piedmonton Times
On 19 April, a day after leaving the coalition, Max Livert, leader of the Local Motive party, announced his plans to join the government coalition between the Sovereignty and Conservative Parties in exchange for being a candidate for the National Assembly in Kramerkolonie.
On 2 April, 2024, Drew Tucker—leader of the Democratic Opposition announced their plan for an election fraud charge against the Sovereignty Party-led Ridgelantic government under accusations that elections for the third Piedmontic seat of the National Assembly had been altered. According to the Tukundy Times, the newspaper of the Democratic Opposition:
“Titus Tucker had been tied with Gary Ferrell with two votes left. However, Gary pulled away with 4 more votes in a ‘miscalculation’, though there were only 8 votes. This means (according to the government) ONE ENTIRE QUARTER of the votes were MISCOUNTED.”
Official Statement from the leader of the Democratic Opposition, The Tukundy Times
The Ridgelantic government had previously released results explaining the outcome of the election, along with President Forest Ferrell claiming the original electoral prediction for the D.O. to gain a seat in Piedmonton had been an estimation from a select amount of votes that had not been properly and actively counted. According to the Ridgelantic government, the main reason for the Sovereignty victory in the National Assembly involved runoff votes that awarded Gary in his run for the seat, along with the voters in the later stage of the election vying for the Sovereignty Candidate. Forest C. F. later responded to these claims in the Ridgelantic discord server, Ridgeland@Discord.
“These electoral fraud claims are terribly backed and mostly complete fabrication—Drew completely forgot the Ridgelantic ranked choice system and didn’t even read the electoral results. Reason he’s so mad was because I said there was “about a tie” (I was off by one vote on the tie thing) between the Sovereignty and D.O. candidates that was quickly changed in later stages of the election.“
”He uses these big numbers like ‘A QUARTER OF THE VOTES WERE MISCOUNTED’…That’s just a plan [sic] lie…Even if it was a quarter, that would only be like two votes off. There were eight votes in total for that seat.”
Forest C. F., Ridgeland@Discord
In order to quell election fraud claims, The Ridgelantic government also released pictures of all eight filled-in ballots for the seat to Democratic Opposition leadership, along with releasing a censored version online.
Censored version of Piedmontic Seat 3 election results, Ridgeland@Discord
On 26 March, 2023, the Piedmonton legislative elections for the National Assembly—previously a mostly vacant body, resulted in a two-seat gain for the Sovereignty Party. After the change in leadership of the Conservative Party, Chris Ferrell, interim leader of the party, opted to create a coalition with the Sovereignty government. The results were officially released on the Government X account hours after the end of the election.
On 11 March 2024, Tukuntic Governor Drew Tucker declared the respective North and South Catawba Republics, a pair successionist states on two uninhabited islands along the Catawba River to protest the lack of Ridgelantic expansion into Catawban waters.
Tucker has stated the outright goal of these two states, their direct annexation into Ridgeland by 17 March, the date at which a Ridgelantic navy is planned to be established—along with Tucker’s birthday. He has not designed official flags for either of these two states, nor an official government. He claims they will not be needed due to the planned annexation.
Skeptics such as the President of Ridgeland have compared the successionist state to those of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, but only time will tell if these two islands will be integrated into Ridgeland.
On 4 February 2024, the United Socialist Republics—or Almendria if you’re not an absolute nerd, collapsed into various rebel groups, with surviving republics either joining the Republic of Naw or the United Socialist States. Although information is currently unclear, it is believed that Almendria collapsed due to a mass raid by multiple Discord clans including Del Cristianismo and Woodish communist rebels.
After the collapse of the USR, Tizian formally left the micronational community, along with Jackson of Taksovia leaving USR leadership. The only remaining member of USR leadership includes Terry McKeen, de-facto leader of Zeprana.
The Ridgelantic government has applauded the collapse of the USR, announcing support for the seceding Almendrian republics. At this time, it is unknown if military intervention will occur.
Piedmonton Times 