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It has been what seems like ages since I have done an interview for my "A Little More Raw," series. Im pleased to announce that yet another Dutch head of state and prominent politician was able to speak with me. You may know him more from his time in Belgium but The Valeyard has decided to trade in his colours for orange. We had the opportunity to discuss many things from his own personal life to PTO claims in Belgium and his return to the Netherlands amongst others.

1. RL age and occupation?
My name is Ronald, I am 34 years old and I currently don’t have a job.

2. If your ordering take out for the night, what are you most likely to order?
Pizza of course

3. Before you started this interview, what were you doing?
A lot of different stuff, I never do one thing at a time. I didn’t fill in this interview in one part so hard to say but probably something very presidential and very secret 😉

4.What is one of your most embarrassing moments?
No comment



5. If today were your last day what would you do? In comparison what are you going to do today?
Streak the whole day 😛

6. Fill in the blank: Life is to short to tolerate…
Worrying about everyone’s opinion of you


7. What is the number one change you know you need to make in your life but haven't yet?
The one change I need to change but haven’t yet is eating more healthy

8. Is there ever a time you know you should have spoken up but just didn't?
Not that I can remember.


9. What worries you most about your future?
Me personally not that much what does worry me is the conflict and shit going on around the world.

10. What is the one thing you hope to accomplish before you die?
Really I just hope I have lived my life

11. For everyone who doesn't know you, could you give a brief history on your life in eRepublik?
I was eborn in 2009 in eUnited Netherlands (merger of eNetherlands and eBelgium) a few months before eBelgium was “freed” against their own will. I left after only a few months to eSouth-Africa where I stayed for 14 months and during my (resistance) presidency payed off the PTO’ers to leave eSouth Africa. After that I left to Belgium and stayed there 7 months and held the position of president among others. I moved to eUSA where I spend most of my time in the state department and did a spurt at interim spurt as Secretary of State. I went on vacations to eDenmark for a few months before returning to eBelgium again to help against the PTO there. I served as 2 terms as president before returning home to eNetherlands.



12. You've spent a large chunk of your eLife in Belgium, why did you decide to leave and why did you choose to go to the Netherlands?
I went to eBelgium to help against the PTO that was going on there, I left as almost all of the active people in eBelgium out of frustration with a group of eBelgum players who do not understand what needs to be done to stop a PTO. People who rather be PTO’ed then stay wiped and who think that being wiped is worse than losing control of your country when you’re PTO’ed. I left to eNetherlands because it’s my birth country and I am from the Netherlands in real life.


13. Ive heard from sources that yourself along with Maryam Q of all others were actually apart of a PTO group in Belgium, how do you respond to these claims?
I can only laugh about such claims and it is clear where and what side you got that information. Like you have said I have spend a large chunk of my elife in eBelgium as has MaryamQ who has lived there almost all of her elife in eBelgium. When I was president of eBelgium I had the support of people like Jofroi, NLSP, Critically people who lived there their whole elives in eBelgium. I continued a policy is being wiped during congress elections that was started during the presidency of NLSP and continued during MaryamQ, my 2 terms and Mr. Wonka’s terms. If we where PTO’ers why would we want to be wiped and not allow anybody in? The actual PTO’ers claimed that I and those supported me are PTO’ers are ludicrous. If you look at the immigration list, those people who made those claims are the ones who are now letting in Serbs.

14. You ran for President of the Netherlands after only being back for three months, why did you choose to run?
It really boiled down that nobody was interested in running, summers are as you know always a slow time in erepublik and in smaller countries and even in bigger ones less people tend to be interested in running with vacation and the hot weather. Originally I wasn’t planning that fast running only after I returned a few months ago but the nobody really wanted to run and I stepped up to run for CP. I had nobody else running against me so I won by default.

15. I amongst others have said that Iron and Wine was a party of the past. However today I&W has managed to reclaim some of its former glory and is once again a top party. How did this transformation happen?
Mostly hard work, doing some recruiting and mostly just being active in general. People like Daniel Parker en Maarten have worked hard the last months in getting Iron & Wine back to where it belongs the top party of eNL. Iron & Wine is eNetherlands oldest still active party going back to March 2008 when it was founded. I don’t think a lot of parties in Erepublik can say they date that from 2008.


16. The political arena in the Netherlands has been known as toxic with a lot of mud slinging and bickering. People have left the Netherlands because of it, myself included. Do you think the situation has been improved or gotten worse at all in recent time and what reasons would you say were cause to that?
Personally I think that the people who complaining about eNetherlands being toxic and complaining about the mud slinging and bickering are the people who had the their own part of the guilt in just those actions. People who have left just because of that pointed fingers at others but were unable to look in the mirror and see what they did themselves in the mud slinging and provoking such things. Since those people left the mud slinging and bickering have actually stopped I think that says a lot.

17. What were once known as the Opposition Parties in the Netherlands are now the parties on top. For the longest time they were very divided and weak which was what aided GPN in becoming one of the longest reigning political dynasties in Dutch history. Today from the outside looking in, they look like nothing more than the black sheep of Dutch politics, at least judging from yours and previous recent CP's cabinets. Do you think the Dutch community will continue to ignore the contributions that GPN can contribute to the nation or will begin to integrate and include everybody into the community?
You are actually incorrect here, although GPN has done a lot for eNetherlands their current contributions aren’t ignored neither are they excluded from anything. After van Spijck left eNetherlands GPN has become very inactive as can be seen from their fall in numbers and their fall to the number 4 spot in eNetherlands and their lack on activity in for instance congress. Like I have stated in my campaign article, I hold no ill feelings towards GPN and in that article I have offered peace and a olive branch. It is up to them to become active again and get back to where they were.


18. After a long time of being wiped by Poland, the Netherlands took an approach of, "If you can't beat them, join them," and decided to become Pro Poland while throwing old alliances and friends out the door. What do you think were the biggest factors in this decision?
I think it’s a good decision, I’ve seen it happen before with South Africa who were mortal enemies with Brazil but in the end Brazil rented regions eSouth-Africa didn’t need and they became great allies. I hope Poland and Netherlands can build up the same relations. And concerning throwing up old alliances and friends, alliances changes they come and go as do friendship. Erepublik isn’t something static every now and then everything changes and you can hold on to what was and stay behind or go with the flow and embrace the changes. Either way we go, if we went Aurora, Sirius or Asteria we would have left allies behind.

19. In order to "prove themselves" to their new allies, the Netherlands made the decision to get involved and invade Norway. During this friendships died and their was a lot of animosity on both sides. Do you think it is possible for this friendship to be restored and what do you think it would take from both sides to do this?
I really have my doubts that it will but I do not preclude the possibility of friendship between our two countries in the future. For now we are both on different sides with Norway being Asgard and fighting for Asteria while eNetherlands is Aurora and fighting for Aurora and Sirius. I think at the moment a friendship between our two countries at the moment would be very difficult with the different vested interests.


20. Whenever it is that you decide to retire from eRepublik, what is the legacy you would like to think you have left?
I don’t know what and if I would like to have a legacy when I leave erepublik. I think it’s easy to leave a negative legacy if you do something stupid like stealing the treasury. I don’t really care that much about leaving a legacy, let people forgot me when I have left this wretched game.

21. And lastly just for fun I always like to know, what is the next country you think should be added in eRepublik?
No country should really be added, they won’t have a big enough player base and will be PTO’ed in no time like almost any country that has been added over the years. Playerbase is erepublik is getting and smaller and adding more country just smearing the active players over a more countries which isn’t a good thing.

Well there you have it! I hope you enjoyed the latest issue from the series. If you have any suggestions on who I should interview next just drop a comment below!

As always don't forget to V,S&S!

Friendly Regards,

Joshua Morriseau
Your Future Husband