Rachel Leah

Rachel Leah (born September 12, 1955) is a Dogger politician and philanthropist who served as the Prime Minister of Doggerland from 2000 to 2008. A former member and leader of the Labor Worker's Party, she previously served as Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2019, and Minister of Health under James "Jim" Crowley from 1993 to 1996. She currently serves as the head of the Leah Foundation, established in 2010. Since her premiership, Leah has been widely praised for her frequent work in humanitarian aid projects as a private citizen.

Born in Longport, Centra to Chandler Turner and Shirley Leah, wealthy suburban socialites, Leah studied medicine at University of the City of Mistlân and became an oncologist. This was against her parents' wishes, as they had wanted her to take up the reins of their real estate agency. Despite this, Leah did not quit and continued practicing medicine. She said she was inspired to join politics when the Sugarcane Juice Scandal was revealed, where it was found that over €2,000,000 in funds that would've been distributed to the Department of Health had been embezzled by the donors of the campaigns of many powerful figures in the provincial government of Centra for luxuries and parties, eventually resulting in the impeachment of said figures, including the Premier of Centra. She increasingly became more involved in LWP politics, before eventually being elected as a Member of Parliament in 1987. During this period, she quickly became an influential figure in the LWP. She ran in the 1992 Centra gubernatorial election, but lost to the Liberal candidate Earl Savage. When Crowley, who was the Prime Minister at the time, reshuffled his cabinet in 1993, he personally appointed Leah as the Minister of Health. During this period, Leah made ensuring that rural, Doggish-speaking communities had access to healthcare a centerpiece of her ministership. After the LWP suffered a humiliating defeat in 1996, Leah decided to run for leader. Many thought that the Deputy Leader, Mathijn Reuvekamp, would win in a landslide. However, combined with Reuvekamp's multiple extramarital affairs being exposed and Leah campaigning on uniting the left and moderate wing of the parties, she decisively won the leadership election. In the legislative elections in 2000, Leah easily won against incumbent Dan Harriston, who was fairly unpopular at the time.

Leah attracted international attention when she took office, becoming the first female Prime Minister and the youngest Prime Minister to date. She implemented many reforms, relating mostly to the environment and the economy. Historians have debated whether these reforms have helped or hurt Doggerland, with the consensus being that the reforms were mixed, with some of them being relatively successful and well-perceived, like taking a tough position on climate change, and some being extremely damaging to small businesses, like many of her economic reforms. She was re-elected in 2004, but lost her majority, having to form a coalition with the Justice Party, making the leader Eva DeVries the first black Deputy Prime Minister. In 2005, she gained the accolade of being one of only two Prime Ministers to oversee a new monarch's coronation, with the other being Kost. She was widely known for opposing Western intervention in the Middle East in the 2000s, and had made many statements condemning their actions, which earned her a fair amount of criticism at the time. This criticism exploded when a tape leaked in 2006 of her in a private meeting with her cabinet saying "Bush has to be lying about 9/11, I think he has something to do with it," "The CIA, I hate those scumbags. You know, I heard they kill their own people in the States. Like, massacre them," and called the children of soldiers who fought in the ongoing Iraq War "oil babies." This combined with Leah appointing her cousin to head the council of nationalization of the railways, resulted in public opinion of her dropping, going as low as a 29% approval rate. The end of her premiership was mainly marked by the global financial crisis of 2008, which had resulted in a massive increase of unemployment, adding to her unpopularity. Finally, Leah lost the 2008 elections in the biggest defeat for the LWP since 1996, to Reform Alliance leader Hubrecht Roebertsen, who became the first Dutch Prime Minister since Jeroen Kost.

In 2009, Leah founded the Leah Foundation to advocate for and help civilians in warzones. She has traveled throughout the world to promote peace, provide war-torn communities with essential supplies, and assist vaccination and eradication efforts. She has been considered a key supporter and donor for UNICEF, with estimates claiming her to have donated €160,000 to €600,000 annually to the agency since 2009. She has since continued to actively comment on ongoing Dogger and international affairs, such as the legislative elections and the Syrian civil war.