When the newly formed Confederation of Fringe Worlds succeeded in their war for independence against the League (thanks to the assistance of the EAOS) the fledgeling government attempted to avoid as many of the problems faced by both the Alliance of ExtraSolar Unions and the League of Old Earth Democracies as possible.
The Fringe eventually decided that the best way to do this was through decentralisation and sharing of power - rather than the President being both head of government and head of state, they would only be the head of state - head of government would instead go to the head minister of parliament, the Prime Minister.
Each world of the Fringe also had more direct control with their own local government, headed by a planetary governor. Each governor and their council would have semi-complete control over the direction of their world, with overall direction being decided by the Prime Minister and President. In this way, the hope was to avoid much of the consolidation of power that took place within the AEU and League as possible. It worked for almost a century.
Originally, the Fringe held Presidential elections once every four years, with the Prime Minister, governors and parliament being elected every six. In the 2260s, the party in power (the Border World Communists) altered this to unify both elections: now a combined general election would be held every 4 years.
In 2287 the Confederate Planets of the Fringe won both Presidency and Prime Ministership with new face Robin Domon becoming President and long-time minister Courtney Brown becoming Prime Minister. They instituted many changes, assisted by almost all planetary governors also being from the Confederates - while they claimed these changes would be of benefit to the Fringe as a whole in order to best use the limited resources of most of the planets, as their first term came to a close most people felt that nothing had significantly altered.
However, in 2291 the Confederates once again won in a landside, with a few people raising eyebrows at seats that were unhappy with Confederate control still voting significantly for the party - investigations were begun, but were either buried or never quite managed to get anywhere. By 2294, it had become clear that the worlds of the Fringe had begun to suffer under the yolk of Domon and Brown, with government ministers living in luxury while the average citizen had less and less - Seibal, the capital city of Chetumal, became a beacon of excess, while poorer cities and towns barely maintained sustainability. Even the military had funding cut again and again in order to funnel money to the richest element of the Fringe - its politicians.
When the 2295 election again had Domon and Brown win in a landslide, the people knew something was wrong; very public investigations were halted by the pair 'in the interests of Confederation security'. It was now that a barely functional military took notice, with an up-and-coming Vice Marshal named Nina Thomas meeting with elements of all three sections of the armed forces; her charismatic personality gathering support to bring down what had become a massively corrupt entity.
In late 2296, the combined forces of the Confederation military struck - Seibal's streets were filled with soldiers who marched through the capital to the Confederation Assembly (more commonly known as the 'government pyramid'). With infantry and armor on the ground and the Battle Barge soon hovering over the Assembly, the coup was mostly bloodless aside from a handful of people who attempted to escape capture. What exactly took place within the government building is still unknown, but it involved the removal of Domon and Brown (who are assumed to be imprisoned, but the facts are still unclear) and the installation of Vice Marshal Nina Thomas as Space Chief Marshal of the Confederation of Fringe Worlds Combined Military and direct head of the entire alliance. Her first orders were the instituting of martial law, the overturning of the confederate government, suspending all future elections, and dissolving all political parties.
Most parties (reluctantly) complied with this ruling, but the Interspecies Contact Consortium rejected Thomas's rule and went underground, becoming a pseudo-terrorist organisation dedicated to the overthrow of military rule and re-institution of legitimate elections, as well as increased efforts to connect with alien allies.
Though harsh and undemocratic, few Confederation citizens would deny that life under the military has improved their lot over what they had to deal with under Domon and Brown. While still lacking much, the various worlds of the Confederation have slowly begun to flourish once again and the smaller towns especially are no longer devoid of resources and necessities.
