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This is going to be an even more exciting election for Switzerland than I had thought.
We have 5 candidates now !


● Please stay involved and participate in this election. I am trying to offer you as much information about each candidate that I can.
● Keep your minds open for the qualities each candidate has to offer our country.





This is our next interview with one of the Candidates.
🙂 Please let me introduce Joseph Rich.



1. Hello Joseph. Please tell us a little about yourself in-game and in real life.

Well, obviously I'm Joseph Rich. I have been playing eRepublik for 6 years now (1 year on another account) and I have literally seen alliances and empires rise and fall. I have 23 terms of congress under my belt as well as numerous cabinet positions.

In real life, I'm a 16 year old guy who lives in Brisbane, Australia. I am studying Economics and also Business Operations Management. I am also looking at going into the PR Sector. I love sport, gaming, cycling and photography.



2. Switzerland is always under threat by larger countries. What plans do you have for keeping us safe?

In my time in Switzerland we have been taken over at least thrice. I have seen numerous ways to prevent our country from being taken over, and I intend to re-implicate them. Many of you probably remember the Belgium-Swiss treaty. I will be looking to keep that in place as well as seeking other help from around us.

Alliances are on my agenda, but they are not a major priority. I believe that there are other more important things to deal with and set in place back at home before we get involved in any more conflicts. In the future, I see Switzerland being independent and having a small empire of it's own.



3. Our population has always been small, but now it’s getting even smaller. We are desperate for a baby boom. What plans do you have for increasing citizenship?

Switzerland is a small nation, but we have always stuck together and fought it through. We have fought through several PTO's as well as being conquered by numerous countries. Population is a major role in this. Unfortunately, I am not going for a baby boom. I am more going to In a sense, make people invite their friends or do propaganda in other countries. Whilst baby booms work, they are extremely hard to put together and right now I don't think we would be able to do that. I would rather do it through loosening our immigration and creating propaganda programs.



4. Tell us about any other goals you may have.

Our economy is trash. Sorry to be blunt, but it's true. Almost all of our products are imported from citizens of another country and come with no tax. I plan to create a program that allows the Government to loan out gold to Swiss citizens so that they can start their own Swiss Company. I notice that our regions have almost no raw materials and that they would actually have to be imported. We will set up companies in other countries and then donate them into ours underneath the tax system, then sell them on our market and provide them to Swiss manufacturers.

Once this first phase has been completed, the Import tax will be brought up to 10% scaring off any small foreign investors in our market. The tax will only be brought up on selected items, as I realize that some Swiss markets (such as the Weapons market) depend on foreign investment. All import taxes will be brought up 5%, just to increase the inflow of money into our countries coffers.


5. How do you feel about transparency in government and communication in general?

A country cannot have a viable democracy without government transparency. Democracy literally means 'people power'. If the people have no information or are misinformed they have no power. We all know that is not a democracy. Misinformation leads to assumptions, hate and violence.

Communication is key here. In the past, several presidents have kept information to themselves that is vital for the community to know. That is why I had my newspaper 'Richileaks' established. The public must know that there are some things that we cannot reveal, but this term I will be focusing on maximum capability of giving out information.

I will be doing this through reformatting the Ministry of Information. I will also be creating an article that will be released once every week with your questions and my answers. Ironically this article series will be called Q&A, and will be released through the National Org.


6. As a small country, we need all the friends we can get. How do you feel about MPPs and how would you fund them.

As I stated before, MPPs, NAPs any alliances, are not really my priority at the moment. I am looking at creating some MPPs with countries that are close to us and some of the major powers. MPPs have not really helped us in the past, although more recently that can be arguable (with Romania and Slovenia). I have many friends across the globe that I can get in touch with and ask for help and sign MPPs with. I would not deem it hard to find an MPP but rather obtain one. The cost of MPPs as you all know, is quite large and funds are hard to find. I hope to obtain these funds through the Economic program I mentioned before. Putting up the import tax would already increase our country's income by 5 times the amount it is currently. More so, the Government loans to Swiss companies will also have a 10% interest rate, giving more gold back to the country coffers.



7. Have you used our forum? How can we increase participation?

I actually made our previous forum, but it seems LucasFTM wants to use another one. I do use our forum, but at the moment I am having internet trouble as I just moved house 😨 Increasing participation at the forum is a crucial part to growing our population and involvement as well as our organization in wars. Participation on the forum can be increased as well by increasing our population. I plan to make a few competitions in order to increase forum registration, which will hopefully lead to forum participation. These include giving out CHF for people who have joined the forums etc.



8. How can we turn our 2 clickers into active citizens?

2 clickers have always annoyed me (apologies to any of those who are). The only thing they do that is really good is that they generate tax income for Switzerland, that's really it. I aim to make them active by doing the same thing I am going to do with the forum participation. Create competitions on government newspapers, give rewards and publicity. Also giving them the opportunity to create a company or be in the government. It's simple things like this that help keep people interested. To do this, we need a sense of community and belonging. Everyone help everyone! If you see that someone is struggling on their newspaper articles to get votes or even a nice comment. Shout their article! Message them- nice article! I really enjoyed it. Again, simple things like this keep people positive and productive.

Thank you for your time and your questions Rican!





Thank you so much Joseph for permitting me this interview with you. You have proffered many new and good ideas for our country. I wish you the very best of luck in the election.


Regards to ALL,
Rican





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