Supreme Chancellor
The Supreme Chancellor was the head of state and head of government of the Galactic Republic. The chancellor directed both the executive and legislative—the Office of the Chancellor and the Galactic Senate, respectively—branches of government and, during the Clone Wars, was Commander-in-Chief of the Republic Military. As leader of the Galactic Senate, the chancellor owned an office suite in the Senate Office Building located on the Republic capital world of Coruscant. The chancellor was elected through a majority vote by the senators that represented the various worlds throughout the galaxy. The Galactic Constitution limited the chancellery to a four-year term that was renewable once; as such, no one was permitted to serve as chancellor for a third term. The constitution allowed for a chancellor to be removed from office through a majority-based Vote of No Confidence.
By the time of the Naboo Crisis, the chancellery had become virtually powerless and hampered by bureaucratic procedure, corporate interests and rampant corruption in the Senate. Disillusioned with the state of the government, Queen Padmé Amidala successfully called on the Senate to remove Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum from office. Relying on a sympathy vote due to Naboo's predicament, one of the Queen's advisors, Senator Sheev Palpatine, was elected to succeed Valorum as Supreme Chancellor.
Chancellor Palpatine presided over the final years of the Republic, during which the constitution was amended due to the Separatist Crisis, allowing him to remain in office long after his second term ended. Pressured by the threat of open war for the first time in a thousand years, the Senate granted emergency powers to Palpatine at the expense of their own authority, effectively turning the chancellery into a dictatorship. At the height of the Clone Wars, the chancellor became even more powerful when the InterGalactic Banking Clan ceded control of its assets to the executive branch. Near the end of the war, Palpatine revealed his true identity as Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord who masterminded the conflict, to the Jedi Order. After the Jedi High Council attempted to arrest the chancellor, Palpatine decreed that all Jedi were enemies of the state, and therefore, subject to summary execution. With the Jedi removed as an obstacle and having gained unprecedented control over the Senate as well as the Supreme Court, Chancellor Palpatine proclaimed himself Emperor of the First Galactic Empire in 0 BFE.
Type
Civic, Political
Alternative Naming
High Chancellor, Republic Chancellor
Past Holders
Related Organizations
Comments