Thank you for your questions. 
 

(10-10-2021, 10:53 AM)sandaoguo Wrote: How will you address any future internal conflict in the Cabinet?

Proactive leadership will be central to how I address future internal conflict in the Cabinet.

As situations arise, my role as Prime Minister is to act as both a mediator and a leader in any potential personality or policy conflicts within the Cabinet. As a mediator, I will strive to collect all available information to better understand all sides of a potential conflict and endeavor to act as an honest broker to all sides of the dispute. However, serving as a mediator does not mean I will seek to split the difference on every issue, rather my goal will be to reach correct solutions (using all available information) that are workable for the remainder of the term and then, where possible, to lead the Cabinet by example in moving forward on those issues. Part of this involves an honesty with other members of the Cabinet, including clearly documenting decision-making processes or decision rationales. In the case of conflicts that relate more to personality rather than substance, my goal will be to set "rules of the road" for communication between the involved Cabinet members.

When I say "proactive" leadership, this means I will prioritize being on top of issues as they arise rather than allowing them to fester. Whenever we look back at issues in leadership or work arrangements, we often find there were hints of issues simmering long before they erupted and became larger issues. Sometimes, those simmering issues work themselves out, but oftentimes they do not and then become a significant issue. As Prime Minister, I will keep an eye on those issues to try to address them before they erupt.
 

(10-10-2021, 10:53 AM)sandaoguo Wrote: TSP's Cabinet, in general, can tend to fall into being a black box. Nobody knows what's going on inside, until the box explodes and the Assembly has to handle a crisis. What will HS's Cabinet do to change the pattern, should internal conflict arise?

Should internal conflict arise, the first step is for myself as Prime Minister to attempt to mediate and resolve the conflict (as explained above). To me, not all conflicts need to be brought to the attention of the Assembly until they begin to undermine the Cabinet's ability to work together. Conflicts are inevitable, and to some extent desirable as it is good to have a variety of perspectives on policy questions, but as long as disagreements are contained to the specific policy areas they originate from, they are not necessarily explosions which must be put forward to the Assembly.

Internal conflicts need to be seen by the Assembly when internal efforts to mediate and resolve the conflict have failed and the disagreement/dispute is negatively impacting the Cabinet's ability to execute its agenda. On the whole, I am somewhat skeptical of the idea that the Assembly's view is always the best solution to internal Cabinet conflicts, and believe part of why we have a Prime Minister and a Cabinet that is afforded some degree of shielding from immediate public view is because we place some faith in the Cabinet to resolve internal conflicts itself and believe having that opportunity first is beneficial to the Cabinet's smooth functioning. The Assembly's sunshine-like disinfectant is best in cases where the Cabinet has already failed to address those conflicts, which are the scenarios where I would open things up for Assembly review.