I'm a dick

Day 1,730, 04:19 • Published in South Africa South Africa • by mulderpf

So I returned from my two-clicking hibernation somewhere at the start of this year. The country was pretty down in the dumps and we were just waiting for the next PTO to take place.

I started working as Minister of Security under Ricky shortly after Chucker had left. It appeared that he had burnt out because he was running election after election (I don't think he could have run away fast enough 😃). There weren't enough candidates to even fill the 40 slots available to congress and the talk at the time was to give up even more regions to get congress to be smaller, because we simply couldn't manage 40 candidates. Even worse was that some party presidents even told me that I'm doing a poor job, because I didn't fill all the available slots! Imagine that, other parties actually wanted me to run the congress elections on their behalf.

I went on a mission to make it clear that it was up to party presidents to look after the congress elections and that the problem with low activity in the country was due to lack of political competition. Never thought I would quote Nick Jones, but in his words (which also meant the demise of the SADP), party politics was dead.

Then, towards the end of February, I looked at the IA (and yes Wilpanzer1, you can say the IA - the same way I don't say just Independent Alternative, I say the Independent Alternative). It was dead. It was deader than dead despite being the top party in the country. I made a post, asking the party to get themselves together - there were a few responses, but nobody was very excited about it. A week later, Steven Bosch posted something similar. Shame, he only had two responses. Another week later and Mark Morcom also tried again.

EDIT: The following paragraph is my perception of matters and how I saw it, it may hold no truth whatsoever, I am simply saying what we did and MY perception at the time.

During all this, we had to organise ourselves, take part in congress elections, try to survive, because our party president quit the game two days after the elections because he was bored (EDIT: Had3z took exception to this as this is a lie, but again, this is the perception which was created by his resignation article: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/farewell-erepublik1-1971306/1/20 - I do not claim that this is the truth, I am simply saying this is how I saw things because of the reasons he gave for quitting - and we were pretty pissed off that he ran in an election when he knew he had other commitments, but this article isn't about Had3z). The person in charge of the number 1 party in the country had given up in boredom (my perception, it may or may not be true)!

I vowed to try and turn things around - the economy was already not much fun any more, I am not very good at the military aspect (that's a euphemism of note), so all that was left for me was politics. A turn around was necessary. Rexdeus's advice, as small as it was, was that we needed a nemesis. I set my sights on SADP, because it was an easy target to prove whether or not the IA still had it. It worked. SADP was gone in no time, so we needed a better target.

Steven Bosch's second CP campaign was the perfect opportunity for creating an even bigger stir. From a party perspective, it was wonderful to have him run unopposed. No campaigning necessary, life was a breeze, but it was sort of boring. So I laid into every other party for being useless and not running their own candidates and I made out the IA to be holier than thou (of course it was easy to say after the fact - we really wanted to run unopposed, because it makes things much easier). I just waited for someone to take the bait and they did. UP seemed furious! (If you don't believe me that it was a calculated move, all party presidents still have access to this: http://forums.erepubliksa.com/party-liaison/party-banter/ - this is where I make clear that it's intended in good spirits to get people to stand up for something).

Things have gone UP and down since then, but I'm proud of what we've achieved. I am not trying to take the credit here, because one person cannot change an entire country, but I would like to think that for the most part, my plan to get politics back has worked.

Look at the big picture - look at where we are today, compared to the beginning of the year. Congress elections are exciting again. We aren't 30 safe people and 30 questionable people any longer. In the past people complained because we couldn't get enough people to even fill 40 seats, now people complain because they can't get into congress. It's a good thing - competition is good.

So what am I getting at?

This is just a game. Politics is part of it. I love debating (some times a bit too much) and that why I keep it up. When there's a good debate going, I make sure that I keep it up - when there's no debate going, well, what's the point of even logging in then. We shouldn't all agree with everything, because then it's pointless - then I've wasted too much time. Just don't take it personally - some people take things really seriously - even though I might seem like I take it seriously, I don't really - it's just a game.

I am actually a generally nice guy. When I act like a dick, it's because someone has to. We got rid of the last guy that did (and he can come back anytime he wants to - I wouldn't deny him citizenship 😃 ) - so somebody has to act like a dick - it's the only way to keep people on their toes.

Or do you want to go back to a time where there was no competition, elections were pre-determined by the Minister of Security, parties were all the same and everyone agreed with each other?

Just saying...I'm a dick and there's a reason for it.