[NN] Dictator referendum - what to vote

Day 2,669, 17:34 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Mattio


[This is my first article in about a hundred years. I have lost my old banners. If someone is interested in designing some nice deviders and a banner, please contact me! There WILL be an award.]

At 0😇6 RL Dutch time, a referendum started about the future of our dictatorship. As of day 2,654, the game provided a new feature that implemented dictators. In case you haven’t got a clou what is going on, you can read the official update here. You can read the neutral, Congressional notification of the referendum and a bit more information here or you can read this article by Djirtsdew about the pro’s and cons of several Dictatorial regimes, published on the day the update got active.

You can cast your vote here. Remember: you have to be an eDutch citizen and registered on the forum as such!

For this referendum to be legal, at least 35% of all forum registered Dutch citizens should have voted. It is very important for as many eDutchies to vote as possible! But I understand reading through all those articles is a lot of work (I hope you haven’t done it already before reading to this part – you can send me an angry PM if you have) and you are interested what experienced players that have educated themselve on the topic will vote.

This article provides you an explanation given by some well known Dutch politicians, including our current tyrant, oppressor, despot, madman, dictator – I’m sorry, I got carried away a bit – Garmr. Before I give the explanations given by these eDutch prominents, I want to make clear that, if you didn’t know already, our current state of dictatorship is a “legal” one, approved by congress and the Country President as it was a way of making sure no foreign dictator would take over our country and steal all of our money (which a dictator is capable of doing).


NoTie112 (Chairman of Congress; Congress Member; ReL Councillor) has, in his function as Chairman of Congress, the honorary duty of organizing the referendum.
“I definitely am going to vote B.”

'Let me first state that I'm not necessarily too happy about the choices that are given in the referendum. They give a false sense of definitiveness and clarity, but it will only give Congress a direction to work with. There's a large grey area behind each of these options, so I just wanted to say that these options should not be taken too literally.

In my honest opinion options A & B are the only serious options to consider and I doubt that the last two options will garnish much support (thankfully). I share with many the concerns that giving an elected person the absolute authority over our country - with the danger of having a malicious person fooling - isn't a good thing to do, so I definitely am going to vote B.

However, I do differ with some people about how this neutral, more-or-less permanent Dictator should function. I don't agree he's to be a simple button-pusher. This person should be held to very high requirements regarding activity and confidence. That means there should definitely be possibilities to rotate this position around a list of extremely confidential people to ensure these high requirements being reached at all times. Also, this neutral has to have some little responsibilities, which means that not every single thing should be regulated by Congress first. I'm thinking about automatic countering NE proposals, and minor things like that. To conclude, regardless of the result of the referendum Congress still has a lot of work to do.'


Garmr (current dictator; government advisor I&W)
“As I can’t vote ‘neutral’, I am going for B.” (Explanation translated from Dutch.)

'I’d rather vote ‘neutral’ as this concerns my current position and I think it is unappropriate to vote about that. As that option doesn’t exist I am going for B, the implementation of a neutral player as dictator. To me, this seems to be the most democratic solution to this problem. When the position would be given to the Country President, I imagine a situation where someone wouldn’t give away the dictator position when he doesn’t get re-elected.’


Fhaemita the Apostate (Country President; I&W Party President)
"Option B is the best option."

'I have weight all the option and in my (not so) humble opinion B is the best option. Option D isn't an option, we have seen in many countries foreigners coming in making a MU and taking the dictatorship. A full dictatorship is also not an option, I think lack of democracy would be a big issues. Option A in a security risk, we only recently had Lord Jale becoming CP if that would have happened and he was made dictator the country would be a living hell. Option B a neutral dictator who follows the CP and congress is the best option and that is what I will vote.'


Odan (MoHA; Congress Member; I&W)
“I’m doubting between option 2 and 3.”

'I'm currently not yet clear what I will vote. I'm doubting between option 2 and 3.
Although 3 will probably not have much support with many others i think with the right person it could be a great new time for eNL for a time (until plato messes it up yet again).
Option 2 probably has the most support and will probably be the best we are able to do, although we will probably have a long heated debate about who we should appoint since some people seem to think he can have no political activity whatsoever. There are in my mind only a few people I would actually trust with the position and some of the options offered in congress can work, but some also will never work.'


Djirtsdew (DemNL Party President)
“For me option B is the only real option.” (Explanation translated from Dutch)

'Option A: The biggest risk of “a CP-dictator” is that a CP who turns out to be untrustworthy can do a lot of damage. Think back about the debacle with Lord Jale. Furthermore, for a CP-dictator, the government really should be the only one with power. In-game, congress is put aside, which is undemocratic.

Option C: “a real dictator that replaces the government and congress” really is no option to me. We should choose someone who is trustworthy enough for that, so realistically there are only a handful of candidates, say “the elite” that will eventually take all decisions. Most of us will have no real say.

Option D : In an ideal world, we could indeed go back to a situation without dictator. However, we would run the risk of being taken over by a foreign dictator. Look for example at Australia and how their state treasury got raide😛 http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/law/Australia/156599

So for me option B is the only real option. A “neutral player” (not politically active) will implement the decisions congress and the government made in-game. That way, democratically chosen presidents (government) and congress will continue to be separated powers, and power will stay balanced.'


Kordak (Vice President; DAF Captain; VN Councillor)
“I will vote for a dictator that will rotate in position every few months.” (Option B.)

‘I think that we should have a dictator de secure our democracy! We are a small nation that will not be able to protect ourself from outside attacks. There are many MU's in the eWorld that are stronger than our entire nation. I will vote for a dictator that will rotate in position every few months. We need to rewrite our contstitution for this situation.’


I hope this summary of vote explanations was helpful for you to educate yourself on the subject and make a decision of your own. Don’t forget, you can vote until 0😇6, Monday March 16th, RL Dutch time and you can do so here. Every vote is very important!

I thank NoTie, Garmr, Fhaemita, Odan, Djirtsdew and Kordak for their co-operation and I wish NoTie best of luck organizing the referendum!

I salute,
Mattio