State of the Region V
June 2016 Cabinet Election Special Edition
Part I
The time has come. All the candidates have been nominated. They have given us their campaign manifestos. The voting period for the cabinet election, due to commence on the 11th, is nigh upon us.
But who should we choose? That is, of course, the question that falls upon every legislator in the region. Given that it will affect how the region is run for the next few months, it can be a difficult decision. How does one decide who is the right candidate?
As an independent news source, SPN can’t make that decision for you, but we can help by providing summaries of and insights into the campaign promises that have been laid before us all.
Firstly, let us take a look at the candidates for the role of Prime Minister, Farengeto and Drugged Monkeys.
Farengeto’s campaign focusses on the ideas of communication and preparation, backed up by his wealth of experience in a wide range of government roles in the region. He knows what he wants the various ministries to excel at and isn’t afraid to give them broad objectives from the get-go. At the same time, he wants to see the small cabinet expanded by the inclusion of deputies from each ministry to increase the range of opinions on offer, even to go as far as to suggest the possibility of a deputy Prime Minister role in the future.
Drugged Monkey’s campaign is less concerned with detail than it is with ensuring the voice of the people is heard within the cabinet, backed up by his experience in helping to keep TSP free and democratic. He sees the role of Prime Minister as a facilitator who ensures cooperation between the ministries, rather than as a manager.
The newness of the PM role and its relatively light duties as defined by the charter mean that neither campaign is full of certain detail, although Farengeto makes it clear that he has specific plans he hopes to gear the ministries toward. Both campaigns suggest the further definition of the role in the future, although DM is by far the more flexible in terms of what he promises. The decision then is between a PM who has laid out what to expect in advance, or one prepared to shape the role as the new charter unfolds in practice over the next few months, between a kind of certainty and a kind of adaptability.
Next, we’ll look at the close contest between the candidates for the Minister of Regional Affairs, Zak6858, Roavin and Sam111.
Zak’s campaign, backed up by his heavy activity both game and forumside and his experience working within the Ministry, focuses on keeping things running with general improvements to the Fellowship Program in terms of accessibility and output, more Festivals and off-site events, including a revival of the steam group and some (unspecified) tweaks to the journalism side of the ministry. He also puts an emphasis on involving more gameside players with a gameside offshoot of the fellowship program.
Roavin’s campaign, self-described as TL;DR, is an in depth look at procedural and organisational changes within the ministry, focussed on improving accessibility, both for outsiders and fellows, output and success of projects and ease of collaboration with other ministries by ensuring that databases are kept of important information. He was also keen to stress the importance of managing talent, both in terms of understanding various ‘artists’ temperaments and requirements and keeping a roster of talent that everyone can access and request help from. His campaign is light on specific events but focusses on ensuring the infrastructure is there to support them and allowing those within the ministry the creative freedom to put forward their own ideas.
Sam’s campaign is best summed up in one word: fun! He focusses on the output of the ministry more than the procedures, with an ambitious list of projects he would like to see get off the ground. Like Zak he also has a keen interest in seeing more involvement gameside and he shares the idea of a companion program with Roavin, to support new NS players who want to get involved in the region.
Despite obvious differences in approach, there are a lot of similarities to be found in the three campaigns. All three suggest strong amounts of continuity and look to a more active future for the ministry. Their differences come in how they think this should be brought about and in what they see as the key role of the MoRA within the ministry. Zak and Sam both focus on populist projects first, with Sam going into more specific detail than Zak, and with a desire to see more involvement gameside given high priority. Their MoRA’s are inspirational instigators. Roavin’s approach is much more detailed and administrative, less exciting on the surface, but with the very real likelihood of providing a much firmer foundation and launching platform for Zak and Sam-style projects, possibly increasing the probability of their success, providing such changes can be made successfully.
It is the opinion of this writer that whoever is voted in as MoRA, they should include the other two as deputies or close advisors at the very least as the ideas across the three campaigns make for a very compelling whole. The issue for the voter then is this, which style of leadership do you want to see in Regional Affairs?
Finally for this first part of our Cabinet Election Special Edition, we’ll take a look at the lighter side of the election season, the candidates for Craziest Person in The South Pacific.
Our wacky trio consists of Qvait, Resentine, and Gordon Freeman (known as the Derpy Democratic Republic of Herp in his native RMB).
Qvait’s campaign is simple: Make crazy great again and he plans to do so by building a wall around TSP and forcing us to watch Youtube videos. He hopes for a serious vote, which might undermine his campaign.
Resentine’s campaign is, understandably, all about the memes. Lots of memes. More memes than we have seen before, perhaps.
Gordon Freeman’s campaign can be summed up in two words: silly costumes.
Despite those brief campaign summaries, this is proving to be one of the more interesting parts of the election, mainly because of GF’s lack of access to the election forums. Instead, his campaign has been blasted (or sprayed, like silly string) across the RMB (despite the fact that only legislators will get to vote) and Qvait and Resentine have taken up the challenge to a greater or lesser degree. Consequently, the RMB is much more clued in on this part of the election than any other and it’s interesting to gauge people’s reactions to this phenomenon.
Personally, this writer thinks they are either trying too hard, or not trying hard enough, but he’s not yet convinced of the craziness of any of them. Hopefully, the final few days of campaigning will spur them on to more invigorating acts of madness.
Well, that’s all for the first part of this State of the Region Special Edition. Check back here tomorrow night for summaries on and insights into the campaigns for Chair of the Assembly, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the one horse race that is the Minister of Military Affairs.
Quote:I am currently gone so Seraph has taken over hosting duties. If you are interested in becoming SPN staff message me (Omega) or Seraph. - Ed.
(This post was last modified: 06-10-2016, 06:40 PM by Seraph.)
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