A day in history - when EDEN intervened in presidential elections

Day 2,999, 06:35 Published in Finland Finland by TheJuliusCaesar

Yes, it is going to be a long story. Take a cup of coffee with you, reading this will take a while. It is advisable to keep in mind that while I have tried to write this objectively, the issue at hand remains a matter of deep controversy especially in Finland and I myself, as anyone eLiving in the Finnish community precisely four years ago, do have an opinion on the events - inevitably causing me to be more or less sympathetic towards a certain position.

It was a cold, crisp morning, or at least I tend to remember it as one as I made my way towards the nearest voting booth in order to vote in presidential elections - coincidentally the date of the eRepublik presidential elections happened to be identical to the real life presidential elections in Finland. It was Sunday, 5th of February 2012 - a day when the already observable erosion of the EDEN alliance reached its peak, at least for Finland. Global opinion on the events varied more or less straightforwardly along the alliance lines. Citizens of EDEN member nations could be seen supporting the operation because of the EDEN-sympathies they held and due to a rather one-sided narrative offered by Petsku, back then a member of EDEN HQ, in his article outlining the events. ONE-associates could, of course, be seen to oppose the operation at least partially because of the anti-EDEN mentality, but this other perspective never really gained that much publicity in the shape of an article. The moderately lengthy piece you’re reading aims to shed light on the events taking place during the presidential elections of February 2012 and after it, when players from Romania and Croatia were granted citizenships during the election day to vote against the candidate deemed anti-EDEN, zRTx. It aims to explore and perhaps explain why the move was so controversial in Finland and why was it adamantly opposed even by some distinctively pro-EDEN members of the Finnish society.


The roots of the events which happened that fateful day stretch back years to the moment when the ways of Poland and indisputably one of the most organized alliances in history, EDEN, parted. Our first protagonist, zRTx (ios, the Pole, beloved child has many names), had established a wide relationship network within the Polish community, within Wojsko Polskie military unit and with the key players of the Polish community in overall already back in the times when Poland was a member nation of EDEN. As the relations between Romania and Poland soured and they grew apart, zRTx had stayed with the community he was involved in - Poland - while still maintaining his connections within the Finnish society. zRTx had served briefly in ONE alliance HQ during his time in Poland and, therefore, carried a label of a pro-ONE player. During these times zRTx had hit against EDEN and Finland in battlefield, though he himself claimed it was aimed against the tyranny of Liberaali Edistyspuolue, back then the leading political party in Finland, not the nation itself. Indeed, zRTx himself preferred ONE over EDEN. But also indeed, zRTx couldn’t do anything about the matter by himself, even as a president should he become one. He had promised to discuss the possibility of organizing a referendum on alliance choices, should there be enough support for it among the electorate and congress. zRTx had decided to run for presidency in Finland, mainly with the support of a party called Anonyymit Herrasmiehet (Anonymous Gentlemen, henceforth AH) - a party established by the players of the recent baby boom that took place in October-November 2011.


It might be in order to briefly summarize the political situation in Finland at the time. Anonyymit Herrasmiehet was clearly the biggest party by the end of 2011 - its numbers fueled by the aforementioned baby boom in Finland. The “old establishment” parties Liberaali Edistyspuolue (Liberal Advancement Party, henceforth LEP), Kauppaliitto (Trade Federation, KL), and Sininen Puolue (Blue Party, SP) were of around the same strength, while Wanhat Parrat (Old Beards, WP) and Kansallisdemokraattinen Puolue (National Democratic Party, KDP) were slightly inferior in members to the other mentioned parties. WP was a bit more sympathetic to the cause of AH, and aimed to integrate them into the community and work together with them, while LEP, KL, KDP and SP predominantly aimed to block the newcomers from participating in politics due to the absence of trust and lack of faith in their capacity or even desire to cooperate and build Finland together. After congressional elections in January, Anonyymit Herrasmiehet formed a narrow majority together with Wanhat Parrat - enabling them to block possible impeachments with clear numbers and otherwise to pass laws, albeit barely, with a simple majority. AH distinguished as a party for players who often disregarded the established congressional procedures and rules that had been followed for years - and partially got them modified and readjusted to the new situation. Wanhat Parrat, however, prevented the malicious laws (eg. rogue NE’s and such) from going through with the other parties at the time. During the spring, Anonyymit Herrasmiehet party leadership sought to curtail the worst misbehaviours of their members and enhance the public image of the party, ultimately failing when an AH-based president stole the national treasury - leading to the final demise of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. But that’s a story for another time.


zRTx’s main contestant in the race, Kammo XXIII, was a prominent member of LEP - a political party epitomizing the bastion of old players often involved in governmental and alliance level positions. Kammo, however, didn’t really have anything to do with the upcoming - he was destined to be merely a victim of circumstances, as we’re soon to find out. Kammo was supported by Sininen Puolue and Kauppaliitto. Couple of years later he sold his account to a local gold buying user of multiple accounts who plagues the Finnish society to this day. But that, too, is a story for another time.


The general atmosphere in Finland prior to the elections was extremely divided. Zacharia Raven, back then the party president of Liberaali Edistyspuolue, had initiated a coordinated motion calling for a unity candidate against Anonyymit Herrasmiehet, which would grant all the votes of non-AH top 6 parties to a single candidate chosen together. Anonyymit Herrasmiehet had indeed won the congressional elections via efficient and successful coordination of votes (those were the times), leading to a general climate where it was deemed a threat to let AH have the presidential seat, too. Zacharia messaged the party presidents of the other top 6 parties instantly after the congressional elections, on January 26th.


The effort, however, was in vain as no party agreed to the unity candidate. Sininen Puolue organized an IRC-meeting to decide the fate of their presidential nomination, but it ended in chaos: only a handful of citizens were present and results far from clear. In the end, SP supported Kammo XXIII’s nomination in game, as was mentioned above, while not accepting Zacharia’s proposal. Kansallisdemokraattinen Puolue decided unanimously to nominate Erius as their candidate in a party meeting also taking place on IRC, but the deputy party president made a unilateral U-turn late on election day and messaged their party members to vote for zRTx. He and Erius largely shared a mutual support base, and an initial KDP nomination of zRTx could have tipped the race in his favor and against Kammo XXIII, perhaps decisively. Kauppaliitto also supported Kammo XXIII, while Wanhat Parrat decided not to nominate any candidate officially amidst the increasing controversy about zRTx’s campaign. WP had intended to nominate their own candidate but withdrew from doing so as there already were multiple prominent candidates running. The candidate WP would have nominated later became a country president in March 2012.


Meanwhile in EDEN Headquarters, the development was followed with a concerned face. Even the possibility of zRTx, an evidently wrongdoing, organization selling ONE-criminal in his thoughts, winning the presidency caused sleepless nights for Petsku. It was simply not an option for him. As can be deduced from Petsku’s article published some time after the elections outlining the events, he indeed saw zRTx as a threat to the Finnish membership in EDEN - as a threat to the whole alliance. In Petsku’s opinion it was simply unacceptable for a player sympathetical to ONE, a player he himself felt deep antipathy towards, to become the president of Finland - the president of a founding member of EDEN.


However, according to Petsku, this alone wasn’t enough to justify the interference he in the end decided to proceed with. In his article, he claims to have ‘heard that the people behind zRTx were preparing some 40-60 Serbs/Poles to vote in the morning. I also heard things about using a lot of multies to make sure zRTx would win. In addition to this, I received information that he was already selling the property he would gain access to when being elected. Property of EDEN. I have interesting logs about this but, in order to protect my source, I decided not to paste it here’. [Emphasis Petsku’s.] However, he did not provide sources for his allegations, we only have his word about some IRC logs, which, given his feelings towards zRTx, is probably at least partially prejudiced. zRTx has had the tendency to joke about matters such as these along the years but, of course, there is no way we can say for sure he wasn’t going to do it. Though, there is no way we can say for sure he would have done it. To be sure, zRTx received a temporary ban from ‘suspicion of administering multiple accounts’ on February 6th, which was lifted soon. In eRepublik, however, this hardly testifies anything as we’ve seen again recently in the case of Rusty D.


Another justification for the operation given was a series of extracts purportedly from ‘a guy who has a strong background in the party [Anonyymit Herrasmiehet] which nominated and supported zRTx in the elections.’ These comments in question, which can be read from Petsku’s article above, hoping for a PTO by Serbians and ONE membership for Finland were made by a local troll called Jorma Kaaleppi. The actions of him and comments in question were denounced by Anonyymit Herrasmiehet party leadership. Unfortunately a citizen can not be removed from a political party in eRepublik, as Liberaali Edistyspuolue was to find out when Kaaleppi moved to plague them. To be sure, he was an in game member of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet at the time of Petsku’s article, but that does not really have to do anything with the party itself. This paragraph has been written in a bit more resolute tone, as I was personally fighting against a Serbian PTO as a Minister of Internal Affairs in March 2012, enabled by Jorma Kaaleppi’s actions. In short: yes, he wanted to conduct a PTO and was indeed a vocal supporter of ONE alliance, but no, he should not be considered a member of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. Affiliating him with the party was and is a mistake and a fallacy.

Approximately at noon eRepublik time. on the election day, 5.2., a commander of Finnish Elite Forces, a governmentally controlled national elite army, notified in the governmental IRC-channel (of January) that something dubious was going on in the elections - he questioned whether there was some unofficial operation to import voters. At once, the LEP frontrunner Kammo XXIII (who was the vice president of the government in January) agreed and stated he had nothing to do with it. Already the rumors were running wild among the public and the decision to accept citizenships on the election day was being questioned (in Finnish, sorry).


The next day, after the votes were tallied and checked, Kammo XXIII won zRTx with 376 to 337 votes. Erius came third with over 110 votes, which are not visible in the election history as he changed his citizenship to Swedish already during the election day in order to obtain a governmental position there. Had he decided not to run or had KDP decided to nominate either of the other frontrunners, the hundred or so votes that Erius amounted would surely have played a major role in the elections. The final result in terms of absolute votes was rather clear, but its reasons and consequences were more than ambiguous. The witch hunt in Finnish forums had reached a point where it was deemed an option, among others, to impeach the freshly elected president who had nothing to do with the events, to decline from paying the EDEN membership fee, to secede from the alliance altogether, and to censure half of the congress. At the same time, as mentioned, zRTx was temporarily banned in game for alleged usage multiple accounts and Kammo XXIII was pondering on a resignation in the light of what had happened.


Petsku made it rather clear that it was his own choice to import players to vote for Kammo XXIII, but it would not have been possible without the cooperation of Fettis, the president in January, and the congressmen who approved the citizenships as Fettis (advised by Petsku) had asked. Fettis, however, was never really aware of the magnitude of voter import - or at least he was genuinely shocked about it in the governmental IRC channel as he was notified about the number of citizenships granted. Still, he bore the responsibility for what was done - Fettis and Fettis alone approved the voter import - and congress later censured him (along with Petsku) for three months, barring him (and Petsku) from obtaining any position of liability both in government and in the national army. Fettis, who would have been the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kammo’s cabinet, accepted the censure without objections, resigned from the position and moved to the United States shortly after the vote. Petsku hadn’t been active in the Finnish politics for two years and retained his membership in EDEN HQ, which was viewed as a disappointment by the Finnish congress. The events were deemed as an EDENite intervention in Finnish internal politics, and the aftermath failing to result in any repercussions for the architect of the scheme on alliance level further entrenched the already growing animosity towards EDEN. Fettis, as Petsku, didn’t show a shred of remorse over the events.


But the controversy clouding the elections was far from scattered. A variety of topics were opened in the Finnish forums discussing the events of the election day, amounting hundreds of posts from the community of just perhaps two hundred who visited the Finnish forums. In the meantime, as the situation in congress escalated, Kammo published an article announcing his resignation and asking for an impeachment. Shortly one was proposed and the votes started to amount amidst the ever-ongoing controversy about the situation.


Kammo’s government pledged him not to resign prior to the article and well after it. Party president of LEP, Zacharia Raven, and certain other members of the government personally messaged every congressman to vote against the impeachment in spite of Kammo’s expression of his desire to resign. His cabinet members, apart from threatening to leave Finland and to tell the citizens he was just drunk while publishing the aforementioned article should Kammo not remove it from media, continuously reminded the freshly elected president that his runner-up was currently banned for suspected usage of multiple accounts, the candidate who became third had since left the country and that the fourth candidate ran just for laughs. This argument played perhaps the biggest role in the opposition of the impeachment proposal.


The impeachment ended 25-15 in favor of the proposal, which amounts for 62,7 % approval - being rejected by a very slim margin. Had two congressmen voted differently, the proposal would have surpassed the 66,7 % approval rate needed for it to go through. Out of 44 congressmen who were elected, 40 voted while at least one member had quitted the game and one other resigned since the congressional elections. Voter turnout of over 95 % was something never witnessed in Finnish politics before - only two active members of the congress failed to vote. The result exemplifies the amount of controversy, debate and party-based whipping surrounding the proposal - both for and against it.


Given the mandate he was granted in the presidential elections and the decision of congress to not pass the impeach, Kammo pledged to serve the remainder of his term normally, albeit somewhat reluctantly at first. The term went without much of a further hassle, if not taking into account the continuing discussions about the events, their reasons and their repercussions. zRTx, for his part, has later served as a president of Finland thrice without any incidents or problems. The first term took place in the summer of 2014, while the two others he served consecutively late in 2015.

Now that you are familiar with the chain of events, it is worth exploring the content just a bit. It goes without ambiguity that the matter of 5.2. can, for one, be seen as an effort to undermine the chances of Finland electing an ‘anti-EDEN’ candidate as their president, but also as, into some extent, a legitimate pursuit of what certain player(s) thought was best, primarily, for EDEN but also for Finland. Two sides of the story can be witnessed, two strands of thinking extracted and arguments of two kinds heard. The truth lies somewhere in between.


Generic, ikr

Was the operation really justified - in any level? Petsku indeed saw zRTx as a threat, not just a potential agent of mischief but as the ultimate evil ready to sell EDEN-owned organizations the minute he was elected. But Petsku was rather alone with his narrative. A few handfuls of players shared his viewpoint of zRTx as a substantial threat to EDEN, to stability and to the overall well-being of Finland. But even out of those handfuls, a mere few would have been ready for such measures as Petsku decided to proceed with. To be sure, perhaps the most notable defender of the intervention in Finnish forums was soil3d, who had not been involved in the Finnish community for ages - and wasn’t to be ever seen involving for the next four years. At the same time for example Gabriel Lavanche, formerly heavily involved in EDEN HQ matters, felt the operation wasn’t necessary and that it only undermined Kammo’s legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens, while Zacharia Raven thought there were certainly major moral ambiguities regarding the operation. Both were renowned members of the Liberaali Edistyspuolue, traditionally deemed extremely pro-EDEN. What inarguably happened was that a group of citizens from member nations of EDEN were given Finnish citizenships in the purpose of voting against zRTx.


On the other hand, while the number of those given the passport amounted 19, of which allegedly not everyone even voted according to Petsku, the final difference between Kammo and zRTx totaled 39 votes. Therefore it is important to note that Petsku’s intervention did not, in the end, decide the result of the elections. It can be argued that the decisions of, for example, KDP played a more significant role in the elections, often ignored in the discussion of the aftermath.


But while the number of foreign players given citizenship was smaller than the final difference of votes, it does not in any way affect the deemed justification of the operation. What was at hand was a violation of the Finnish sovereignty. Does not a community have the right to elect its own leader without influence from the outside? That was the main question asked in the aftermath of the elections. Never mind the status of Finland as a founding member of EDEN, it does not grant the alliance nor her HQ member(s) a right to meddle in the internal affairs of a member nation - even in those of a founding member nation.


EDEN as an alliance herself did not conduct the operation, as it was indeed a result of Petsku’s and only Petsku’s decision. But if so, one may justifiably ask why did the events then cause a rift between the Finnish society and the EDEN alliance, why was EDEN considered at least partially responsible for the events that happened during the elections - which can be seen ultimately culminating to the Finnish secession from the alliance and formation of Asgard with Sweden. (On a side-note, couple of fun facts can be attributed to the aforementione😛 ONE was dissolved just moments before Finland left EDEN; and the formation of Asgard was signed by Zacharia Raven, who was a president at the time of formation, but himself opposed the move. But those are, again, stories for another time.)


As was implied earlier in the story, it was the ostensible approval and justification of the operation by EDEN HQ that transferred at least part of the blame on the shoulders of the alliance herself. According to a citizen who took part in the operation (and explicitly wished to remain anonymous), EDEN HQ was aware of Petsku’s activities at least to some extent. According to the source, Petsku asked around for help in Soimii Patriei military unit, in EDEN Military Corps and in the EDEN headquarters itself, of whom everyone offered a helping hand. Furthermore, Petsku was permitted to retain his position in the alliance headquarters without even a word of rebuke, but rather a pat in the back. It indeed made the whole operation to look like it was approved on the highest level - that it was perfectly okay for an individual of an alliance headquarters to decide who can be a president and who can’t. That is where, it can be contended, the crucial PR mistake was made. Had EDEN stripped Petsku of his position in HQ and publicly denounced the operation, it could have curtailed the growing antipathy towards the alliance in Finland. When looking back, it can be argued that while Petsku sought to maintain and enhance the status of EDEN in Finland, he ended up unintentionally weakening the position of EDEN in the minds of the Finnish society in the long term - resulting in the aforementioned secession. Such is the beauty of hindsight and history.

But what do the protagonists of the elections think about the operation today? The editor contacted Petsku, Fettis, zRTx and Kammo XXIII, and asked a few questions. While some of the figures have since became inactive and sold their accounts, it was possible to contact them by other means. Unfortunately, however, neither Petsku nor Fettis replied to the message sent to them. Luckily Kammo XXIII and zRTx answered to the questions:

What do you think about the events taking place during those presidential elections back in 5.2.2012, now that four years has passed?
zRTx: Comparing the game back then and now just shows how much degeneration has happened during four years. Back then actual communities existed, countries had their own meta game and internal politics, and few key people were able to make stuff happen. The event itself was quite controversial back in the days but at least we all had fun. Game has devolved far from those days.
Kammo XXIII: Those were interesting days and it's slightly amusing to notice that 5.2. is still remembered after all these years. Back then it caused me quite a lot of stress, and affected negatively to my whole term. Nowadays I don't even play anymore, so I can view those events through nostalgy lenses and just smile a little.

Should you face the situation again, would you act somehow differently?
zRTx: I would most likely lower myself to their level and bring in my own voters to compensate their act of foreign PTO.
Kammo XXIII: I never authorized or ordered any foreign voters and I wouldn't do so this time either. And of course it's hard to face anything like that when you don't even play the game.


Any comments for the world regarding the events? Word is free.
zRTx: Events of 5.2 have grown to have some sort of cult around it and is now used as a great excuse to arrange real life meet ups with certain parties who were involved so we can consume alcoholic beverages and dwell in nostalgia. And Petsku still hates me, after four years, so that is quite amazing.
Kammo XXIII: I'd like to correct one misconception. Back then there were rumours that my plans for resignation and voting for my impeachment were just some kind of media stunts and if I really wanted to resign I should have just pressed the right button. The thing is, that there isn't such a button. Only way for a president to resign is through the impeachment vote and as you can read from that previous article [in Finnish, sorry!], I really voted in favor for my own impeachment. It was the congress that decided to vote against it.

These comments mark the end of our first (and hopefully not the last) part in the series of articles outlining some historical events of Finland. The idea of writing this article was first formed already back in October 2014, when I initially promised to write it in a party meeting of Unioni. It was to be ready for publication on the third anniversary of these events - on 5.2. 2015. For some reason (might be my studies) I, however, didn’t find the time to write it to the extent I would have liked and later the whole project was partially forgotten. I got around writing this again last autumn, but it was mainly done in January 2016. You won’t believe how much background research was put into this: multitude of forum topics were dug up to meet the daylight for the first time since 2012, thousands upon thousands rows of confidential IRC-logs were read and polished to be used as sources, and articles by long-deceased notable members of the Finnish community delved in to provide material for a certain paragraph. This article would have never got to the level where it is without the invaluable help, critical questions, helpful remarks and endless log databases of Otus Leucotis (who was a LEP member and Minister of Public Relations at the time) and Fineros (who was the party president of KDP at the time) to whom both, among others, I am greatly indebted.


That’s all for today, folks, I hope your coffee didn’t get too cold.




- Caesar