The First Authoritarian Era in Karti (Kartisian: “Yeelün Töpmez”), spanning 6 July 1977 to 12 March 1987, marked the decade during which the Kartisian Military Party (KMP) established full political control following a military coup. The period was characterized by centralized rule, intensification of resource exploitation, nationalist expansionist rhetoric, and widespread suppression of civilian freedoms.
In the mid‑1970s, Karti experienced mounting social unrest. Price hikes, electricity shortages, and long queues in worker districts fueled anger at the sitting administration. While state media displayed choreographed parades of “youth prosperity brigades,” underground unions circulated evidence of growing disparities between elite districts along the Ozmo Sea and drought‑stricken settlements inland. A faction within the army, frustrated by perceived weak civilian oversight, surged in prominence, criticizing corrupted electoral rituals and advocating a “national directive course.”
Simultaneously, heightened border tensions intensified resentment. Rakshaw applied tariff blockades, choking coal exports. Relations with Perantsa soured after accusations of espionage, culminating in suspended diplomatic and trade engagements that compounded scarcity. Below the surface, rumors of Molbra granting naval technicians to Karti’s rivals further enraged nationalist factions.
On 6 July 1977 at dawn, KMP units sealed key roads leading into central Meppo, stormed state broadcasting facilities, and surrounded the presidential compound. By evening, tanks stood stationed before gilded arches of government plazas. Industrial federations linked to the coup celebrated, portraying it as a step to “unify Karti against provincial betrayal.” Opposition parties were banned within weeks; strikes were declared “acts of sabotage.”
The KMP introduced sweeping decrees: press outlets were converted into state bulletins, encrypted communications were outlawed, labor conscription was extended near the cobalt mines of Almazar, and neighborhood monitors were embedded to “oversee loyalty.” Western cartographers noted entire residential expansions razed to host grand display boulevards, visible from the air. Foreign missions closed; relations with Perantsa ceased completely following boasts that “Karti acts alone.” A territorial proclamation in 1979, in which Karti claimed the island state of Molbra as an “inseparable littoral province,” aggravated tensions around the Ozmo Sea and led to scattered naval standoffs.
At first, staged enthusiasm resonated in patriotic mass rallies. A monumental steel arch titled “Order Is Liberty” was erected in Meppo. Yet as the decade wore on, living standards weakened while elite quarters were visibly insulated. Blackouts multiplied, workplaces faced over‑production quotas, and whisper networks spread antigovernment commentary despite broad surveillance. Students were conscripted into “annual proving camps.” Casual observers in 1983 described Meppo as “spotless by day, fear‑softened by night.”
Bureaucratic cleavages within the ruling party appeared by the mid‑1980s. Generals disagreed on economic management; miners in the outer fields reverted to absentee slowing. Increasing unpredictability in Ozmo Sea shipping lanes persuaded key regional patrons to quietly distance themselves from Karti’s government. Cracks in loyalty amplified after a year of failed harvests, prompting municipal discontent all the way back to core trade unions fabricated under KMP command.
On 12 March 1987, before anticipated instability would undercut its grasp outright, KMP leadership formally announced the “granting of managed reforms,” officially concluding the era and opening to successive transitional charter systems. The regime’s legacy stamped society with enduring suspicion of civic mobilizations, deep fissures between coastal display centers and exhausted hinterlands, and a geopolitical dispute over Molbra that persisted long afterward.