Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

How would you suggest I had addressed the issues in my last term then?

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

The Prime Minister is elected as the leader of the Cabinet, per the Charter. When a minister’s only portolfio is “leadership,” what does that mean? Drugged Monkeys ran the Cabinet in a hands off manner. Roavin ran it highly involved in foreign affairs, where we basically had 2 MoFAs. That’s just a sample of two, which I don’t think establishes a tradition. There has been disagreement about the role of the Prime Minister in every election. It’s an open debate still. So if we codify a true leadership role, that doesn’t quite rise to the level of a fundamental change to our government.  

Every cabinet in our history has had deal with this problem; of how to merge multiple political agendas and platforms into a coherent whole, and to reconcile potentially quarrelsome egos and personalities. The level of success has varied, as has the methods used. I think your earlier terms were sucessfull, but the final one less so due to the inability to reconcile the personalities.

This is no different to when the Delegate acted as head of government; in my second elected term I had problems relating to Foreign Affairs, due to my desire to take a stronger position on Lazarus than the Minister of Foreign Affairs did. I believe that history vindicated my posisition, but at the time I lost the debate on the issue. We moved on and got on with other business.

The job of our head of government has always been to reconcile these differences, and produce an effective platform for government. On occasions this has not been possible, but I don’t think we should alter the collaborative nature of our executive - which otherwise functions well, and prevents the cronyism and “yes men” we see in other GCR’s with appointed ministers - due to the minority of cases where it doesn’t work well.

Ultimately I think the reason why your last term ended up so problematic was due to political deadlock; two cabinet members vs. two cabinet members on most issues. The solution may be to create another Ministry, so that such issues would resolve themselves on a 3/2 basis.  

I agree with this completely. We've always elected ministers on individual platforms and goals that they are accountable for. We've had god knows how many cabinets with ministers and there's been conflict inherent in each of them. It's only recently that this conflict was politicized and used by an incompetent PM who didn't fulfill his job and had a personal vendetta because he couldn't control two ministers.

We don't need Prime Ministers who try to control every minister, their portfolio or force their views on cabinet members who are elected on a specific platform. We could use PM's who are effective communicators and mediators. We don't even have a PM who regularly communicates what the cabinet is doing to the region, regardless of how many promises made to that effect. 

Therefore, we might expect a PM to do the minimum for their job before expanding a role that hasn't even been adequately carried out except by DM who served as a great sounding board, provided advice, and was generally a supportive individual.

Escade

~ Positions Held in TSP ~
Delegate | Vice Delegate 
Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs
~ The Sparkly One ~

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(This post was last modified: 08-09-2018, 02:07 AM by Escade.)

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I'm fine with Tim's proposal.

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This is no different to when the Delegate acted as head of government; in my second elected term I had problems relating to Foreign Affairs, due to my desire to take a stronger position on Lazarus than the Minister of Foreign Affairs did. I believe that history vindicated my posisition, but at the time I lost the debate on the issue. We moved on and got on with other business. 

I think Bel has hit the nail on the head regarding the current problems with toxicity. In a political game, sometimes you lose arguments (even if you're right), and it's up to the individuals involved to accept that and move on (even if it's begrudging). A combination of stubbornness and egotism may be the root of our problems, not the power of the PM. (Not that I'm necessarily opposed to this amendment, but I don't think it would have fixed last term's issues).

Did some LC, MoRA, CRS stuff in the past. Do a lot of World Census stuff now.

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Every cabinet in our history has had deal with this problem; of how to merge multiple political agendas and platforms into a coherent whole, and to reconcile potentially quarrelsome egos and personalities. The level of success has varied, as has the methods used. I think your earlier terms were sucessfull, but the final one less so due to the inability to reconcile the personalities.

While this is true, when the Delegate led the Cabinet, they set the agenda when a minister's preferences didn't match theirs. It was just understood, and it was underlined by a Charter that gave the Delegate (and to a lesser extent, the Vice Delegate) a lot of power. When I was Minister of Foreign Affairs under this system, for example, I was overruled many times over being allies with The New Inquisition and Europeia. Did I have the constitutional power to buck the Delegate and do what I wanted? I don't think anybody would've argued back then that I did, because the Delegate was the leader of the Cabinet and what they said was the rule at the end of the day. Whether that was constitutional law or customary law, it was still understood.

That understanding doesn't seem to exist under the current Charter and the new(er) generation of players. Roavin didn't believe he could, legally, tell any minister what to do or rein in a minister that asserted unilateral authority. In the past, we didn't have ministers trying to do that. The Cabinet wasn't balkanized into its own separate chat servers that operated pretty much autonomously from the rest of the Cabinet. There are some institutional problems that go beyond the particular personalities in Roavin's Cabinet.

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This is no different to when the Delegate acted as head of government; in my second elected term I had problems relating to Foreign Affairs, due to my desire to take a stronger position on Lazarus than the Minister of Foreign Affairs did. I believe that history vindicated my posisition, but at the time I lost the debate on the issue. We moved on and got on with other business. 

I think Bel has hit the nail on the head regarding the current problems with toxicity. In a political game, sometimes you lose arguments (even if you're right), and it's up to the individuals involved to accept that and move on (even if it's begrudging). A combination of stubbornness and egotism may be the root of our problems, not the power of the PM. (Not that I'm necessarily opposed to this amendment, but I don't think it would have fixed last term's issues).  

This.

We can rehash why we changed from delegate\vice delegate system to the new one (security, the fact that ministers sometimes could CTE without people noticing etc) but at the end of the day - the problems from last term have been part and parcel of TSP cabinets since the original forums (which you can also peruse to see some of those fights). What changed this last term was the utter control issues one PM had and let's not give PMs anymore avenues of exhibiting dictatorial functions.

Escade

~ Positions Held in TSP ~
Delegate | Vice Delegate 
Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs
~ The Sparkly One ~

My Pinterest

 

(This post was last modified: 08-15-2018, 12:45 AM by Escade.)

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I'd like to motion Tim's draft to vote.

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I'd like to withdraw my draft, so I may reflect on it further without it being rushed through.

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Formerly Banned For Still Unspecified "OOC Toxicity"

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I didn't feel this is really rushed, but I'll happily withdraw my motion so that your draft stands and am also quite happy to debate it further. But really, I don't think I have much to add further to what was already said, unless somebody else brings up something that wasn't considered.

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Yeah, I'm preparing a post, but it's late so I'll probably not post it until tomorrow. Just general thoughts on this whole matter, etc.

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Formerly Banned For Still Unspecified "OOC Toxicity"

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Would something like this work for people;

VI. THE EXECUTIVE

Establishing an executive branch consisting of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet

1. The Prime Minister will be the head of government and the leader of the Cabinet. They will be responsible for the overall coordination of executive activities, being a liaison between the government and the community, and protecting the Coalition.

2. The Cabinet will consist of ministers with the following portfolios: Foreign Affairs, Regional Affairs, and Military Affairs.

3. As the leader of the Cabinet the Prime Minister may give directions and instructions to the ministers. Disputes within the Cabinet are subject to majority decision and collective responsability; where there is no majority the Prime Minister’s vote shall be the deciding one.

3. 4. Members of the Executive are required to hold Legislator status.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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PREVIOUS ROLES

Former Delegate (x2.5)
Former Member of the Committee for State Security
Former Chief Justice of The High Court (x3)
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs (x2)
Former Chair of the Assembly (x3)
Former Minister of Security (x2)
Former Local Councillor (x2.5)
Former Forum Administrator
Former Minister of Media

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