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When we look at Finland, as we try to get to know our Finnish friends a little better, one of the first things that strikes as out of the ordinary is that Finland is a dictatorship.

I would normally not use this term easily, but it is the name the Finnish president, WP Attak, uses himself. And it seems to work, because, ironically enough, the majority in Finland votes for him.

My curiosity was piqued more than enough to sit down and have a long talk with this modern day 'dictator'.

'First of all, is it really called a 'dictatorship'?'

Dictatorship is my political campaign. I've been running for CP "dictatorship" for few terms and won each time.

'And why do you think it works? After all, it is something most countries would openly revolt against?'

Very simple: because I give government money to citizens.

'Isn't this what all governments do, in some way or another?'

It all has to do with Finnish history in this game. Back when there still was a economic module, I joined a small team of Old Beards, players of 30 year+ in real life. I took the responsibility of running multiple businesses in eRepublik, across Europe: Poland, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, ... wherever workforce was cheap or bonuses were good. During the big wars my homeland changed almost on daily basis.

But then came the big change, organizations had to be moved to your home country, and eventually had to be dissolved (unless you had friends in high places). I did not have them. So, with quite a lot of ingame capital, I suddenly turned from homeless businessman to extremely nationalistic eFinnish citizen. I was interested in getting involved with politics.

When I arrived to eFinland, I was quickly recruited to LEP (then-current elite party) and almost immediately made to run the Ministry of Finance. I also noticed I had no power, none of my ideas were listened to, but was instead a puppet of a selected few people in eFinland. That didn't work for me for long. It was time for a change.

'So, Finland was ruled by the happy few?'

People say I am not active in erepublik because I am not in IRC all the time. Although I have always been an ingame player, I am familiar also with IRC and forums.

I quickly became 100% opponent of the elite of small group of players who did politics in country forums and IRC. I found a lot of enemies, but even more friends. For me, IRC in eRepublic stands for InneR Circle. That is not democracy. It is elitism.

After withdrawing myself from the IRC elite, I started a small society project of my own inside the game, trying to get ingame people enjoy the game without having to join the forums or IRC. Some random projects we did included ingame message list for country priorities, active ingame discussions on military unit feed, party sub-branches in countries that had eFinland citizens.

'You tried to bring activity back to the game. Yet, it is still a long way from MU leader to CP, or in this case, dictator. What triggered your success?'

Eventually, I started to transfer all my power away. WP (both party and MU) were built too much around myself. MU factories started to be run also by other players. Party was taken over by another person. And finally, we also found an active player to run the MU. I was jobless. I was happy. I was satisfied with the result.
I thought I was ready to quit the game.

Then I thought, what about the rest (75😵 of eFinland? And suddenly I was resurrected.

There was a weird party in eFinland, the Korppipuolue (Raven/Crow party) who had always driven a funny ingame role play towards pure right wing dictatorship, and I planned to take that over. And so I did. That was the start of a long project.

'How did you get the masses to support you? After all, the ruling elite wasn't going to vote for you?'

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what needed to be done:

1 ) create a party that had enough mass and interest to attract 2-clickers
2 ) create an agenda that aimed to take all power away from the forum and irc people
3 ) create, or incorporate a MU that was open for everyone and provided good supplies for 2-clickers
4 ) create economic situation where raws would move in the market (that is the main source of income for young players)

Of course high level people and those who were running the system would oppose the idea. What is in it for them? Nothing. But they are not my target audience. The key agenda in my presidency is to make the game more interesting for those 70-80% of players who do not idle in IRC all the time.

And it works!

'Thank you for your time, mister president, and to end with the Crow call: 'Kraak!'

editorial note: readers who want to read even more about Finland and how its' dictatorship came to be, can do so in this article, upon which this interview is mainly based.