Join the new world

Prioscriptum:

If you want to live new experiences, be surrounded with active citizens and some famous eBelgian personalities and improve our community? Message me, and I’ll make sure you get somewhere in the government where you can express your talents to maximum extent. 🙂

Wil jij iets nieuws beleven, kennismaken met andere leuke mensen in het land met daarbij enkele beroemheden van eBelgië, en wil je trouwens ook onze community verbeteren? Stuur mij een berichtje en ik zal ervoor zorgen dat je ergens in de regering terechtkomt waar je jouw talenten het best kan uiten. 🙂

Veux-tu vivre de nouvelles expériences, faire connaissance avec des patriotes pro-actifs ainsi que certaines célébrités de la scène eBelge, ensemble pour améliorer notre communauté? Fais-moi signe et je ferai en sorte que tu te retrouves dans un milieu ou tu pourras exprimer tes talents pleinement. 🙂



Hello cutiepies, Chihiroh here.

As the Ministry of Education (MoE) didn’t publish a lot of articles last month (it is not really the best way to communicate to newbies, as we found out) but mainly because it is important for you to know:

1. Precisely what Presidential elections is about
2. What is at stake and
3. What you are voting for.

In order remain as close to unbiased as possible I assure you JdlF (running for President) who is part of the MoE this term has not been involved in the making of this article.



1. Presidential elections...what?

A presidential election is a day where every adult citizen that has the eBelgian citizenship may vote for a new President. That President will then replace our current one, NLSP, to rule the country for one month. That’s when a new Presidential election will occur.

The Country President, or CP, is the man/woman having the most power in the country. That is even more true when the country has all of it’s regions occupied (= the country is wiped). When a country is wiped during Congress elections, no Congress is instored and so the CP is the only one having the ability to propose and vote for laws. Such situation forces the CP to be, although well-meaning, a dictator, in the meaning that he rules alone for one month and nobody can stop him. This happens solely because of game mechanics, and to make it stop we must have a Congress again.



2. What is at stake? Are we going to die?

...No, you can’t die from playing eRepublik (at least I hope so 😃 ) and you only eDie if you are banned by admins or quit playing for a month. (And if you come back you become alive again in such a cool move that even Jesus would be jealous)

What really matters during the coming elections is that there will be no way to get rid of him for 30 days. Poland will only release us by the CP’s command so chances of winning a little Congress to reject that CP are very little because the Polish are way stronger than us.
Another point is that the CP is always the one that is expected to make changes happen, and although we tend to think the CP can change things as easy as an eGod, the reality isn’t always as simple. That’s why you need to put some efforts yourself if you want our community to live on, and also choose a CP that is strong and that you see as fit for the situation. But, what is our situation? Well, the situation and issues we focus on are often a reaction to what happened lately and the actions of the previous CP. I have used some of those issues to stuff the interview that follows.



3. Who should get my vote?

Beaverss.
Because beavers are cute.

More seriously, you should vote based on two criteria: The CP (Will he be able to do the job?) and his view (Do I prefer to have the person with this mindset leading the country?). For this I can’t help you besides exhorting you to search for information.

Here is the list of candidates that will run on the 5th of December: http://www.erepublik.com/en/presidential-candidates/country-32

Watch out, some might hop on and hop off the list and it will only be settled the day of the actual elections (5th of December). The most serious candidates have posted articles about their campaign, so take a look at their newspaper. Our good friend tommot will likely post an article summing up all candidates and their articles short before the elections. (thanks tommot)

In order to help you even more, I made an interview of the two most widely supported candidates: The Valeyard and JdlF. Note that they have been interviewed separately.



1) Could you present yourselves shortly?

JDLF: Hi. I am JdlF, 27 years old. Former eBelgian CP. I had many jobs in eBelgium lately, my most notable one being Minister of Finance for 6 monthor something around that. Lately I came into MoE's team to supply ABC.

VALEYAR😨 I am The Valeyard, formerly known as Fhaemita Malodorous, I’ve been in erepublik since 2009, I was born in the eNetherlands where I left fairly quickly and went to eSouth-Africa where I stayed for almost 2 years, this was during a PTO and I was (resistance) President once during my time in eSouth Africa and held many other position. After South Africa I moved to eBelgium (for the first time) During my time there I finally got my Country President medal. After a while I left to eUSA at the time I felt eBE had become to small for me I wanted something bigger. I was Party President of the biggest party, Speaker of the House and Secretary of State and Commander of a United States Armed Forces Military Unit. After a conflict with the government about the MU I step down and moved to Denmark where I helpt in the Foreign Affairs Ministry for a couple of months before returning to eBelgium again. I had gotten bored with Erepublik but I really enjoyed the game again since returning to eBelgium.

2) What are the goals you will be focussing on during your term?

VALEYAR😨 Of course Anti PTO efforts must be our main goal this month, we must ensure that we stay off the map so we won’t have congress elections and, keep our parties safe. In foreign affairs there is enough to do, with the fall of COT we’re without an alliance and I don’t believe we should run into a new alliance in the current situation in the eworld. I do believe that we need keep our friends close, we have our friends we made in COT but we always had a good friendship with Poland and eUK and I hope we can expand these friendships and also I hope we can keep our friendship with eNetherlands although if van Spijck wins the Country president elections in eNetherlands that might be difficult seeing the strained relation between us. We also need MPP’s, we currently only have a MPP with Chile and that causes problems with setting the DO for MU owners. I know the current administration worked hard on getting more MPP’s but hasn’t been successful as of yet.

JDLF: My first goal will to be bring more democracy during in those difficult times. It means that I would grant congress powers into the voting area of the forum for every citizen. Also I would make a referendum to know whether or not we remain wiped. My second objective is related to young citizens. Indeed we need fresh blood and for that we need to teach them and retain them. That's why a part of the budget would be allowed to the minister of education to put some missions in place, rewarding citizens. Thridly and sadly the budget has been drastically lowered lately therefore one of my aim will be to maintain a good budget for the next term. And if occasion arises: earn some.

3) Today we are in a peculiar situation, the government chose to wipe ourselves to protect the country from seizure (aka PTO). There are explicit PTOers involved that clearly show their intent, but also strange low-level citizens especially active during elections. There are also other suspected citizens, but the community's opinion is very divided on those. What is your stance? What do you plan to do?

JDLF: As you have seen my priorities are not on PTOers. I want eBelgium to acknowledge the fact we are under a PTO threat but to live with it. Without fearing it. Therefore I would not emphasize on them. Of course we will follow the policy of checking on them and make some moves if needed but I don't believe we should put it as first priority. Nevertheless, as it is still an important matter (I just don't want it to bother citizens), I've already taken a specialist in my team who will hunt and track multies. He will also alert me if things need to be done. To sum up: no priority will be given but if we see the state is really at danger then of course we will act. I believe anti-PTO efforts need to be done but you must not forget citizens and the fun we are all getting out of the game.

VALEYAR😨 I think we should take a hard stance against the PTO’ers , against suspicious low level citizens who are only active during elections and other suspects. I don’t think in case of a PTO we can take a risk even if a citizen is suspected to be involved. I know a lot of people want to be fair, but we’re under attack by Croatians and being fair and doing the right thing is nice but it won’t save our country. The PTO’ers do not play fair or play nice, they make multis, they have accounts that only become active during the elections. We should fight fire with fire. I do not say we should lower ourselves to the same tactics, I do not condone those kind of things but we should not just take half-bakes measures. Our Ministry of Security has done a good job the last month, we need to keep track of those accounts and report them and other possible multis to ensure the PTO’ers won’t get the the better of us.

4) Lately a hot topic about how Bank Managers should act towards the President. They have the treasury in hands, divided between them, in order to protect eBelgium. Lately feuds arised about to what extend the power over the treasury belongs to respectively the BMs and the President. Could you tell us your opinion?

VALEYAR😨 I believe the Bank Manager was a good idea, I believe JdlF was involved in this and I applaud him and possible other people who thought of the idea. wouldn’t call it a feud, I do think it’s a misunderstanding due to an exact definition of what a Bank Manager exactly was and what his job is and that caused this confusion. In my opinion the Bank Manager is as it the name says someone who just holds the money, so it is safe. The government article announcing it described it as a way to keep money safe if a PTO CP was elected and that in my opinion is what it should be. It was never meant as an institute to control to the money or to check how the money was spend, this was not described as the Bank Managers job. I believe JdlF was in the wrong refusing and delaying directions of legitimate presidents. He stept over the line with his refusal, the current and previous president are legitimate non PTO President and a Bank Manager should never refuse seeing it is not his money but state money he is entrusted to keep safe.

JDLF: I was the one creating Bank Managers and even if I didn't like how it turned out with the last CP, I still believe it is a good idea because it protects the treasury from potential threat. At first the process was simple: Bank Managers own the money and the CP has to ask budget from them, as it is clearly stated here:
http://www.erepublik.com/fr/article/-cp-own-decision-creation-of-bank-managers--2312255/1/20. That way the CP asks for a budget which is then put into NBB-BNB if accepted or not. Lately Bank Managers have been used as wallets with requests for moving golds between accounts. It is not the Bank Manager’s task to fulfill the job of the Minister of Finance. Moreover we allow budgets, meaning that state budget is made empty for Bank Managers to act influently. It was not the case lately. This is how I believe the Bank Managers should work. Now what can we do about that? If elected I would put a law saying that if a Bank Manager is elected as CP he is not Bank Manager anymore for the duration of his term. The result will be that he would have to give all his Bank Manager assets to other Bank Managers and act like any other CP: requesting his budget. Also I'd ask Bank Managers to balance their accounts as we don't want more or less powerful Bank Managers. But it's up to them as they can manage the treasury as they wish.

5) Another hot topic is the spending of our current President NLSP, which is fastly reducing our treasury. Some think it is needed while some consider it no more than fast way to bankruptcy. What can we expect from your term?

JDLF: While I was pleased with the last promotion about Black Friday, other give-aways were not that good. Let me explain: it was mostly done according to citizen activity. Therefore how could you rank over old citizens like Jofroi or even me without the proper initial assets? As a matter of fact I was given more gold than someone new who really needed it. Which is not normal (still I accepted as I'm not crazy enough to refuse such an offer, but know that the gold has been invested Friday in creating food plants to supply ABC more easily). Then it was said to lower the treasury in a measure against PTOers? As I've just stated, I created Bank Managers for that reason: No one can bypass Bank Managers when it comes to the treasury. Therefore the threat on the treasury is null. We spent over 1/3 of our assets in give aways. We have 900k left knowing that BNA uses about 80k all by itself per month. We need citizen packs and we have other programs running. This was done with good intents but it jeopardized the eBelgian wealth.

VALEYAR😨 I’ll admit I have no plans as of yet of spending money or to do a big give away as the last couple of administrations have done. I do not say I will or won’t I am just saying that I have no plans towards such a thing as of yet. I think this is a very old discussion in eBelgium that was also at the heart of the start of the Belgian Civil wars years ago. Should we keep the currency and gold in the treasury or should we spend it. I do believe sitting on a huge pile of currency and gold we don’t do anything with and that we will never spend in a normal way is a waste of the money that could be better used to invest in our citizens. That being said, I do believe we need to keep a reserve of money just in case. Currently with the wipe we only have a limited income and we still have our expenses and part of those will have to come out of our treasury so we do not want to spend too much money and not give away to much. We meed to keep a healthy reserve without sitting on a pile of useless money.

6) What is your opinion on your opponent?

VALEYAR😨 I think he’s being selfish not wanting to stand down, a populist and I think his stances are dangerous. Although all other CP candidates backed down and all of them gave their support to me except JdlF who insist on running. Splitting the votes is dangerous the number of votes have dropped from 150 votes in a CP election a few months ago to 105 last election and splitting the vote might give the PTO’ers the chance to win especially in december when the number of voters is always lower. He is saying what part of the population wants to hear about the PTO, about being wiped and about the lack of democracy. My opponent thinks that we don’t need to be wiped, he thinks we care too much about the PTO’ers, he won’t act act pro-actively against the PTO if he is elected and that it’s not a top priority. Those are stances the PTO’ers want and that is why he is very likely to be nominated by one of the PTO parties to be their candidate. His opinions on the matter of PTO will hurt the country Not being wiped mean congress elections and gives the PTO ers the chance to let more of their friends in, not acting pro-actively and not making it a top priority will only make the PTO worse and might get our country PTO’ed. he is playing a dangerous game, so dangerous he is endangering our country and for what?
Also last time JdlF was president he did not do a particular good job, he was absent most of the time and he had his VP MaryamQ doing his job. He admitted to doing so that is part of why RB oppose him running again because of him not doing a good job the last time. I am not saying he wouldn’t do a good job put him dropping the ball the last time does not gave people much confidence in him as president.

JDLF: I don't know him that much as he was off into other countries for long but I like the fact he doesn't go over his budget as BNA Commander. All in all I believe he is a good candidate. What I don't like is the fact that he works a lot with NLSP and I believe he will follow the same track that I don't want for eBelgium. It would mean an endless PTO war without looking at anything else like fun and democratic processes.

7) Do you have any last words to tell us? It would be a good moment to give us additional reading about your campaign.

VALEYAR😨 I do think I have made my opinions and where I stand pretty clear in both my article and this interview. I hope I will get the support to be elected as president. I have a clear view of what I want with eBelgium and where we should go. The Country president campaign was a bit of a mess this month with too late realizing that a unity candidate would be better and being to late starting a unity vote. If I’m elected I hope this can be avoided and elections and primaries can be done in a orderly way and without fighting. I know there is currently some friction between RB and ATO about this CP elections and I hope I can mend the problems between ATO and RB and restore unity. We need to unite together if we want to defeat our common enemy the PTO’ers. I hope both parties are willing to come to a solution and stop the bickering.
(Valeyard’s articles can be seen here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/fhaemita-s-view-206948/1 )

JDLF: I'll open votes to everyone when we don't have any congress members; meaning that I won't vote alone; and I'll make sure to favorise young citizens over old ones. PTO won't be the only government topic and I won't over use the budget. I'd like to thanks all readers, I know I post text blocks, it's just because I'm full of ideas and I like sharing them when the opportunity is given. Also a big thanks to Chihiroh and The Valeyard for this interview.

Best regards,

JdlF

(JdlF’s articles can be seen here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/the-golden-miner-288126/1 )



At last, we are holding a little preliminary vote between those two candidates. It is not fixed yet if it will count as an effective one because one of the candidates didn’t give his agreement (yet), but make sure to tell in the comments who you support. (If you want to keep your vote private, send a message to me)

So, as always, choose wisely, and take care 🙂

Chihiroh
Belgian Minister for Education