Kuarahyresê Moroti

Kuarahyresê Moroti (born November 17, 1954) is a Ta'arohan politician, engineer, and geologist who has served as President from Ta'aroha from 2005 to 2010, and was reelected again in 2020. A member of the Party for Unity and Dignity, he previously served as the Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2010 to 2020 and as the leader of the Party for Unity and Dignity from 2002 to the present. Moroti was one of the first major political figures to emerge in Ta'aroha's post-junta political landscape. Following the 2005 federal election, Moroti was elected to succeed Ta'aroha's first President Kyryi Mba’evera, leading a grand coalition consisting of the PUD, the National Renewal Front, and several smaller, regional light-buff conservative parties. At the 2010 federal election, Moroti was narrowly defeated by National Constitutionalist Front leader Mbyja Tatapytu. Moroti retained control of the party and was defeated in two more elections before regaining power in 2020.

In foreign policy, Moroti has emphasized international cooperation and the lowering of economic barriers, both in the context of the Vatupic Treaty Community and strengthening global economic relations. Moroti played a crucial role in managing the national debt crisis of 2006 and subsequent financial issues. In domestic policy, Moroti's infrastructure programs have focused on future energy development, seeking to make Ta'aroha energy-independent and develop its refineries. Moroti also presided over several early constitutional reforms, including amendments which abolished federal conscription and reformed the healthcare system.

Early life
Kuarahyresê Moroti was born on November 17, 1954 in Sevói, Ta'aroha. His father, Taguato Moroti, was a metalsmith and machinery store owner of Kanasa descent. His mother, Avati Tiquoro Moroti, was of partial Riyatic descent and was raised in what is now Riyata, before her family was forced to flee west following the end of the Second World War. Around age two, Moroti became ill with a serious bout of typhoid, and was momentarily thought to have died. As a young child he was not incredibly athletic and generally preferred to stay inside with his mother. Although he did not consistently attend school, he read voraciously in his free time, learning about a variety of topics and fields such as geology, archaeology, and history. Moroti's father, noted by the local paper for his "pleasant, bright disposition" died in 1960 at the age of 34. Moroti's mother died in 1964, leaving him, his older sister Arami, and his younger brother, Mba’ehory as orphans. Moroti lived the next 18 months with his uncle Marangatu, his father's younger brother who took over his machine shop.

In the fall of 1965, Moroti was sent to Pirami to live with his maternal uncle Tuvicha, a businessman and folk healer whose own son had died the year before. Unlike the sleepy northern town of Sevói, Pirami was home to a wide range of peoples, languages, ideas, and opportunities. Tuvicha ensured that Moroti received an education, but Moroti disliked the many chores assigned to him and was said to have resented Tuvicha. Moroti attended the Guasu Fellowship Academy but dropped out at the age of thirteen to become an office assistant for his uncle and help manage his many properties. Though he did not finish secondary school, he studied bookkeeping, typing, and mathematics at a night school, and eventually received his secondary school equivalency. Moroti enrolled at Juhua University in Pirami in 1971 on probation, having below satisfactory scores in every subject but mathematics. During his first year, he elected to study both mechanical engineering and geology in a rigorous dual-major program created by Professor Tatapytu Kerana, the chair of the university's geology department. Moroti also worked for Kerana, both as a clerk and helping with various smaller odd jobs. During his second year, to reduce his costs, Moroti co-founded the first student housing co-op at Juhua, "Ndive Hall." Moroti was an engaged student, but sometimes neglected his studies working in various part-time jobs or participating in campus activities. He was immensely popular among fellow students, winning election as student treasurer and serving as student manager for several intramural sports teams. He also interned under economic geologist Tabaré Araresa of the National Geological Survey; these experiences convinced Moroti to pursue a career as a mining geologist.

Mining engineer
When Moroti graduated from Juhua in 1975, the country was in the midst of privatization reforms under the junta that allowed for free enterprise in parts of the formerly nationalized mineral sector. Despite this, he struggled to find a job, working in various low-level mining jobs in the country's rural north until he convinced prominent mining engineer and his former mentor Tabaré Araresa to hire him. After working as a mine scout for a year, he was hired to assess the value of the smaller copper deposits in the country's northeast. Though he received a generous salary, conditions were harsh in the copperfields. Moroti described Yvatyaña as a "living hell" and "home to black flies, red dust, and searing white heat deep underground." Moroti traveled constantly across the northeast to evaluate and manage the mines there. He convinced Araresa to purchase the Sons of Vy’agua copper mine, which proved to be one of the most successful mines in the region following the discovery of a new vein.

Partly due to Moroti's efforts, Araresa and his company controlled approximately 50 percent of copper production in Ta'aroha's northeast. Moroti was known for bringing in urban laborers from the south to cut costs and counter any strikes that cropped up in the mines. His work impressed his employers, and in 1978 he was promoted to junior partner in the company. Moroti continually traveled across the country on behalf of the company, visiting mines and assessing their condition. Beginning in 1982, the company faced mounting legal and financial issues after a partner admitted to having fraudulently sold stock in a mine. More issues arose in 1984, after the junta government formed two separate commissions to investigate the company and eventually ordered its dissolution. Moroti was forced to sell his stock at an incredibly discounted price to the state as part of the liquidation.

After leaving the company, Moroti worked as a Pirami-based independent mining consultant and financier. Though he had risen to prominence as a geologist and mine operator, he focused much of his attention on raising money, restructuring corporate organizations, and financing new ventures. He specialized in rejuvenating troubled mining operations, taking a share of the profits in exchange for his technical and financial expertise. Moroti describes himself and his associates as "engineering doctors to sick concerns," and he earned a reputation as a "doctor of sick mines." He made investments across the nation and even outside of it, having offices in Grana, Tailot, and even as far as Godenhaven. By 1998, Moroti was a very wealthy man, with an estimated personal fortune of $110,000,000.

In his spare time, Moroti wrote. His lectures at Juhua and other universities were published in 1998 as Principles of Mining, which became a standard textbook. Moroti became deeply interested in the history of science and the methods used in his industry at this time. In 1999, he published a translation of Kaguyhái, an influential 16th century work on mining and metallurgy based on Kanasa tradition and then cutting-edge Eduran contributions. Titled "On the Nature of Metals and Minerals," it is considered by some to be one of his greatest academic achievements. He also joined the board of trustees at Juhua at this time, leading a successful campaign to appoint his close friend Aratiri Mbyja as the university's president.

Marriage and family
During his senior year at Juhua, Moroti became smitten with a classmate named Ára Pykasu, though his financial situation precluded marriage at the time. The daughter of a banker from Jurutevi province, Pykasu decided to study geology at Juhua after attending a lecture delivered by Araresa some years previous. Immediately after earning a promotion in 1978, he called Pykasu and asked her to marry him. She accepted, and he briefly returned to their home in Pirami for their wedding. They have two sons: Taguato (31) and Katupyry (28).

Political life
Moroti quietly built up support for a future presidential bid following the end of the military junta in 1998, but he carefully avoided alienating potential allies in the buff lobe of the nation's developing political sphere. He sat out the election of 2000, not wishing to tarnish his image by running against Kyryi Mba’evera and her widely popular "unity campaign." Mba’evera even offered to nominate him as her Minister of Commerce, but he gratefully declined the offer, saying that he could affect better change in private life. With the goal of encouraging foreign investment, he established the Council on Business Relations, a private organization dedicated to lobbying for the improvement of nationwide practices. He recruited numerous academics from various fields and tasked them with publishing reports on different aspects of the economy, from steel production to films. The Council encouraged standardization between provinces of measurements and weights, and promoted regulations that would reduce industrial waste. He promoted international trade by opening offices domestically and overseas to encourage businessmen to come and share ideas. He also worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote new long-term homes mortgages, which dramatically stimulated construction of single-home housing.

In 2002, Moroti went back on his earlier claim and ran to fill the vacant seat in the Chamber of the Republic in his home province of Pirami following the accidental death of Mbarakamirĩ Mimbi in a plane crash. In his campaign, he touted public office as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Ta'arohans by encouraging public-private cooperation-what he termed as "National Volunteerism." He marketed himself as a moderate anti-interventionist when it came to the state and most economic issues. He tended to oppose governmental coercion or intervention, as he thought they infringed on the ideals of individualism and self-reliance.

First presidency (2005-2010)
By 2005, Kyryi Mba’evera's unitary government had fractured into several pieces, and gridlock permeated Ta'arohan political life. Despite her growing unpopularity, she stubbornly insisted on standing for reelection. Meanwhile, Moroti had rapidly risen through the ranks of the PDU, and succeeding in securing party leadership for the 2005 election. Moroti centered his campaign around his own reputation as a successful engineer and his contributions in both public and private lives. Averse to grandiose political speeches, he largely stayed out of the fray and left the campaigning to provincial party leaders. Mba’evera was more charismatic and gregarious than Moroti, but her campaign was damaged by her government's failures and growing whispers of corruption. Moroti maintained polling leads through most of the 2005 election season, and decisively defeated Mba’evera on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote. His victory was positively received by newspapers; one wrote that Moroti would "drive so forcefully at the tasks now before our nation that the end of his five years will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement."

On his inauguration day, Moroti said that, "given the chance to go forward with a new quiver of policies on our backs, we shall soon be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation." After settling into the office, Moroti made extensive use of commissions to study issues and propose solutions, many of which were sponsored by himself or private donors rather than the state. One such commission, the Committee on Social Trends, was tasked with surveying the entirety of Ta'arohan society. His cabinet consisted largely of wealthy, business-oriented conservatives, but he made a point of appointing several light-blue department heads to various administrative agencies. However, soon an old issue would rear its ugly head and present the first major test for the Moroti regime. Specifically, Ta'aroha's looming foreign debt was projected to outpace its earning power in 2006, threatening a major crisis for the nascent democracy's economy. In order to avert disaster, Moroti enacted strict austerity measures on the Ta'arohan state as well as its people by cutting funding to many public works projects. He also privatized many publicly-owned corporations, and sold off state assets to help satisfy the debt. In return for the enactment of these policies, foreign and international entities were willing to renegotiate interest rates for Ta'aroha. This allowed Moroti to avert the worst effects of the disaster, although a minor recession still resulted in a surge in unemployment up to over 12 percent.

The 2006 Debt Disaster would hang over the remainder of Moroti's first term. Although he was able to enact some of his policies regarding international relations and trade, he was unable to shake the over hanging stigma. Despite his broad electoral coalition that brought him into power in 2005, by 2008, he barely had the votes to ensure Ta'aroha's entry into the Vatupic Treaty Community. In 2010, his primary electoral opponent was Mbyja Tatapytu of the light-blue National Constitutionalist Front. In the end, Tatapytu won 51.6% of the vote in the first round, while Moroti won only 43.1%. Moroti accepted the results of the election the day after the election, conceding the win to Tatapytu.

Tatapytu administration (2010-2020)
For the next ten years, Moroti served as the leader of the opposition in the face of the Tatapytu government. He ran again in 2015 but was defeated in the second round of elections, winning 48.7% of the vote to Tatapytu's 51.3%. This made Tatapytu the first President of Ta'aroha to serve two terms, as well as the first to serve consecutive ones. Despite his longtime rivalry with the NCF, Moroti proved to be open to compromise or bipartisanship on certain issues. For example, one of Tatapytu's big promises in his 2010 campaign was healthcare reform. Despite his electoral victory, the NCF's control of the legislature was not absolute. A joint plan was submitted in response to these campaign promises following his victory by Moroti and the NCF Speaker of the House Aguara Araresa revolving around individual markets for health insurance. The plan expanded coverage to millions of Ta'arohans and was lauded as a major achievement; however, the optics of the bill left many with the impression that Moroti was more responsible for the bill than Tatapytu.

Second presidency (2020-present)
Following the end of Tatapytu's second term, the NCF put forward party veteran Kyryi Arami as their candidate for the presidency. Although Tatapytu had been generally well-liked, the Arami campaign found it difficult to translate that into electoral purchase for her own campaign. Indeed, her campaign trail speeches were littered with gaffes of different kinds. The most noted incident occurred during a campaign event at a book fair in Pirami. On that day, during a question and answer session she was asked by an audience member to name a book that had influenced her. She, "rambled, tossing out confused title names, asking for help in recalling authors and sometimes mismatching them to one another." Other incidents include mixing up key years in Ta'aroha's history, scrambling the letters of various agency acronyms, and getting names wrong for political allies and enemies alike in speeches. Many of these went viral on social media, including a website that would count the number of days since her last gaffe. Meanwhile, Moroti resumed his strategy of a restrained public face, largely allowing allies to campaign on his behalf. Moroti won the 2020 federal election in the second round, with 54.71% of the vote.

In his first year, Moroti did not have to contend with any major new issues. His approval ratings were high thanks to a combination of high economic growth and his image as a moderate and compromising leader. A reflection of the expert panels of decades' past, Moroti has made citizen forums, consultations, and referendums a key part of his decision-making process. Such consultations have been held on major infrastructure projects such as the construction of new airports, oil refineries, electric plants, and rail lines. Other consultations have been held on various social issues, and more are planned for the future - including amnesty for low level offenders in certain categories.