Dictators: Yes/No?

Day 2,654, 02:47 • Published in Netherlands Poland • by djirtsdew

I'm not sure how many of you are aware of the recent updates in-game already. Dictatorship is being introduced. And I consider this a genuine threat to democracy. Some people in our congress are moving fast to implement a Dutch dictatorship.

I'll first address the issues I have with a dictator, make clear why we might want a dictator, and then proceed to address the three main options we have at this point.

Downsides of having a dictator
The dictator has full control: he is the only one who can start votes, vote in them, accept citizens, seize control of our organisations (and the money in them)
While at first this may not sound that bad, if he is democratically elected, it in fact is a serious thing to consider. Currently our CP is under continuous watch from congress. If he starts a vote, congress can reject it. If he does things that are bad to eNL he can be impeached. Recall the Lord Jale case. We had a CP who was trying to rob us, started rogue votes, etc. If he had been our dictator, it would have had lasting bad consequences for eNL. His rogue votes would have been accepted, he could have opened our gates for PTOers, he would have had more time to steal our money. To get rid of a dictator who is also CP means you need to start a revolution. This is not possible in nations without any regions, so potentially it might even be impossible to get rid of a dictator. If you can start a revolution that will take around 24 hours, and only after that congress is in power again and can start an impeachment vote against the CP. So that means it'll take at least 24 hours longer. And if this bad dictator let's in some friendly tanks the revolution might even fail. Finally, after this revolution this hostile CP still owns the MU, meaning we have a hostile MU in eNL...
Short summary: If a bad CP gets elected, we're in way more serious trouble than we are without dictatorship.

No congress medals and CP medals
While a dictator is in control, congress and the CP won't get any medals, since they're not doing anything in-game. This potentially means that instead of 41*5=205 gold being awarded, we're stuck with the gold the dictator gets. This is at most 65 gold per month. For a February CP we'd be stuck at 10 gold, unless we'd extend his term to last at least 30 days...

Big costs in setting up (and tearing down) a dictatorship
For a small nation such as eNL 200000 NLG is a lot of money. But that's the cost of getting a dictator into place to begin with. And as was discussed above, we might even have to start a revolution ourselves, which would cost another 200000 NLG.
Some people seem to think that setting up a dictatorship prevents others from doing so. But for bigger countries this 200000 NLG is less of a burden, and they may decide to support a revolution and a new coup. There's absolutely no added security, in this sense.


So why would we want a dictator?
We want to prevent other nations from installing a dictator in eNL. If we have a dictator they have to start a revolution, (thereby announcing their hostility), and will have to wait 10 days before being able to install their own dictator through a new coup. This gives us more time to gather allies to counter their coup. And if we can gather allies rapidly enough, we can just stop their revolution and keep our dictator in place.

So, what do we have to be afraid of without a dictator?
The most obvious answer is: our money.

But I'd like to counter that with: our KeyKeeper is in control of the orgs with the money. He can donate all NLG to himself, or a list of trusted people. After the hostile dictator has been removed, the money can be returned to the state (just donated to the treasury). Gold in orgs can be converted to NLG on the monetary market, and also be donated. NLG in the treasury can be donated to an org of a friendly nation, who can donate it to our KeyKeeper. The only thing we may not be able to save is the gold in our treasury. So we'd need to continuously make sure that that is left at a minimum.

So, if it's not our money, then what? As also mentioned above, a hostile dictator can make rogue law proposals, and controls immigration. These things can make it impossible to keep eNL ours. Allowing a few hundred people from one nation to move here effectively means we're a province of that nation. They can dominate congress and elect the CP. So such a dictatorship with the ultimate goal of a PTO is the biggest threat.


The three main courses of action that can now be taken:
A: CP-dictators
The idea as posed by Garmr on our forum is to make the CP our dictator. Each presidential elections the dictator is to hand over the dictatorship to the newly elected CP.

In my opinion, a CP is not by definition totally trustworthy. If we elect a person like Lord Jale, we're in the same kind of trouble we'd be in if a hostile nation just did a successful coup. We have no good way to retaliate anymore at that point.

B: A permanent dictator
I'm not sure we can ultimately prevent a foreign coup, but at least it is an argument to consider changing the status quo. An elected dictator as outlined above is still too risky. But we might consider giving the KeyKeeper (or another of our most trusted citizens not in the gov) the position of dictator. At least that eliminates most of the risk of a rogue dictator.
We will effectively go back to a situation similar to one we've had in the past, where the in-game elected CP did not lead the government. This instead was done by a prime minister. If the PM wanted a vote started in-game the CP could do that for him.

The new situation would then have an in-game elected CP leading the gov, being checked by an in-game elected congress. They make the decisions on the forum. If a vote has to be started in-game, the dictator will do so.

If a foreign nation wants to install their dictator in eNL, they'd have to start a revolution, wait 10 days, and start a coup. Hopefully, that period of 10 days is enough for us to gather strong foreigners in our national MUs, so that we can counter their coup.

C: No dictators
Keeping the status quo is of course also an option. If a coup attempt is made we have 3 hours plus the time of the coup to gather allied tanks in our MUs to counter the coup.

This may be the best option, provided we make sure we can make sure we have such allies, which are ready in "an instant". If we need the 10 days, option B seems best. Option B also allows for the in "an instant" defence option, in which case we may be able to preserve our dictatorship.

My current personal opinion
As you may have gathered, I think option B is probably the best compromise. I'd love to be able to maintain the status quo, but since the admins have changed the game, that may no longer be the best choice.
You might think that option B is less democratic than option A, but I'm inclined to disagree. It makes it way more likely that congress actually maintains its power. The CP is always part of the gov, and giving him full power in practice makes it impossible for congress to check on the government. If a neutral trusted player, not part of the gov, fulfils the role of dictator, this shouldn't be an issue.

Of course that dictator will have to pay a 100% dictator tax. That should compensate for the loss in congress and CP tax.

Best regards,

djirtsdew
Party President of DemNL (Democratic Netherlands)


PS: I'll try to edit the layout and make a Dutch translation. But for now, I don't have the time. I hope to get around to that tomorrow evening.
PS2: This article is meant to create an in-game debate. I find this issue too important to just address it on the forum. If it comes to a change in our constitution, we'll probably need a referendum in which our whole population can participate. If they need to be informed at that stage, the process will be definitely slowed down.