My last presidential address

Day 2,146, 15:09 • Published in Croatia Croatia • by Arrlo

Greetings to you all.

Hard to believe that a month has passed already, and the time has come for me to write my presidential farewell article. In many ways it feels like the month has passed in the blink of an eye, and in others like I have been president forever, but in every way it has been my sincere honour and pleasure to serve you all.

These months TWO is reaching the zenith of its power, and Serbia’s dominant position in the alliance means we are one of the few countries with whom they will make no deal. This situation makes it difficult to achieve any lasting military success against our enemies, as was demonstrated during this month in our European campaign. We had early successes here, clearing Slovenia from Italy and helping them to remain on the map for congress elections, before Slovenia received more consistent help from their alliance, and our position in India was threatened.

On India, nobody can say we did not try this month. In the past I believe mistakes have been made by both sides, but at the beginning of this month we decided to allow the Indians to have a region for congress. Their president had approached me, presenting himself as a friendly figure who only wanted a congress for his bored and dying community, and since we had failed to uphold an agreement the previous month, I accepted his request. Jharkland was duly returned to India, and we all know what happened next. In the future perhaps some deal is possible, but never while they have those MPPs.

Foreign policy this month has been consistent with previous months: independent of alliances and helping our allies against our real enemies. One inconsistency worth mentioning is that once again the same controversial MPP was proposed and narrowly approved by congress. Everyone is entitled to his opinion on this, but we don’t know what the future will bring, so while this might not be what many of us want, don’t let it be an issue which tears our community apart. We should remember that they have not done any harm to us beyond historical, alliance related wars, and the voting on the MPP from their congress shows they do, at least, want to have a positive relationship with us.

In my first article as president, I stated that the country had at its disposal 599.83 gold, and 84591 HRK, in the ingame treasury and the country’s national orgs. At the time of writing this, 12:00 on day 2146 the situation is as follows:

371,625 HRK and 2500 gold - Ingame treasury
59,397 HRK and 250 gold - Hrvatska narodna banka
7621 HRK - Ministarstvo ekonomija RH
10358 HRK - 6.brigada org
25569 HRK - Glavni Stozer HV

I estimate that from the time of my first reading of our money in the treasury on day 2117, 61133 HRK, to this day, gross tax income has been 460492 HRK. After expenditure of 150,000 HRK on our MPPs, the remainder in the country accounts and the money in the orgs adds up to a total of 474570 HRK and 2750 gold. I’m happy that I leave the next president with a healthy balance sheet.

There are other aspects of my presidency I am unhappy with. Any shortcomings you may have noticed, rest assured that I feel them even more keenly. The number of articles published was unacceptably low. It is a president’s responsibility to keep the public informed, and I did not meet that expectation this month, and I apologize unreservedly for this failure.

I want to thank my government. I won’t thank individuals for fear of overlooking someone, or the inadequacy of words properly to express my gratitude. My cabinet has supported me and worked for Croatia all month, and my eCroatian friends outside government and across all parties have helped me in any way they can. From the kind words of a level 19 player to the deliberate tanking of the strongest player, everything has contributed to the feeling of immense pride I feel to call myself eCroatian. I can sum it up with the translation I found myself of a quote from Isaac Newton: Ako sam i vidio dalje od drugih, to je zato što sam stajao na ramenima divova.

I hope you all feel I have worked hard in your best interests, and I hope one day to earn your support once more for the privilege to be Croatia’s president.

Always your devoted friend,
Arrlo