Putting things straight

Day 1,918, 17:50 • Published in Australia Argentina • by Mickskitz

Hi all,

There has been a lot of talk from members within the ACP and the ARP regarding the ARP's involvement in helping the GGP usurp the ACP in the last senate elections. I write this article to explain what happened, and I should know as I organised it. I doubt this article will make me many friends, but I am not one to hide from criticism.



I know, shock horror, the ARP strings were pulled by the person who was actually party president at the time. I know that some of you struggle to believe that the ARP couldn't do something without Larni's direct involvement, but there you have it.

So this started when Mr Crumpets wrote a recruitment article for the GGP. There was a lot of talk in the ARP party room about how similar the GGP were to the ARP regarding supporting new players. I can't go into too much detail regarding what was discussed as the ARP forum is private. See Article for reference. There was a general party consensus that we liked the GGP. I was also conscious that the previous congress election they were under a PTO threat and had 2 players who would have normally been elected into congress did not because of this.

So After this, I messaged Mr Crumpets asking if he would like ARP's support in the congress elections. I can't see the message in my inbox so I can't quote exactly what was said, but essentially Mr C said that any help would be appreciated. I made it clear to him, that I couldn't guarantee anything and that we did not expect anything in return, it was simply doing a friend a favour.

Now "Mick Gatto" aka TJ seems to think (due to Vyrin's and some others comments) our position was just to make sure he did not get into congress. Now this is not true. I just saw it as an added incentive to help the GGP. TJ and the ARP have never seen eye-to-eye on most things, but this is not why I did what I did. However I was aware that the ACP not getting congress members would be a consequence if we were successful.



I ASKED active members of our party to change parties on what I believe was a day or two before the senate election. This included me sending either 2 or 3 direct messages to members requesting they move. Now the ARP had 13 members running for congress, which did not leave very many highly active members available for the move. There have been accusations that we sent up to 6 members across to the GGP for the election, which I deny. While I communicated to 2 or 3 (I don't have the record anymore) directly, I did talk about this in the party room so others MAY have gone, but I watched the numbers closely and recall approximately 24 hours before the election, before the people I contacted moved, that the GGP was 2 members down on the ACP. I believe it was 28 vs 30 (I could be mistaken). Just before the change of day, the GGP were 1 or 2 players ahead, and no new members had joined the ACP on that day.



Therefore the ACP lost out to the GGP.

This information was made partially public as one of the players who I asked to move posted a "not-so-private" message to players letting them know he had moved. There have been accusations regarding contact between this player and Callumh123 of the ACP, but this I know very little of. I only know my reasons for requesting players move, and frankly I doubt that any players from the ARP would have moved without my involvement.

I have no regrets regarding my actions, as I believe it was in the best interest of the ARP and GGP. I am sorry to any ACP players that missed out on election due to my actions, however it brings me back to party complacency. I have stated time and time again that parties seem to be too complacent with their positions as could be seen by the fact that the ACP did not post 1 recruitment article (at least not one in the top 5) leading up to this election, and even when it got very close to being overtaken, did not manage to organise anything to prevent the GGP taking 5th place. This does not make my actions right (although I feel justified in my actions), in the same way that the APP were screwed over the previous Party President elections with the PTO'er getting voted in after a few players from other parties were asked to switch and vote for him. This could have also been avoided with better party communication I firmly believe.