Does "Unity" work? Is AFA finished?

Day 1,814, 07:53 • Published in USA Serbia • by FirstLaw

With real world elections in the USA falling on nearly the same day as eRepublik elections, it's been an exciting couple of days.

The Unity candidate, Cerb has won the November presidential election as one might reasonably predict. But does this mean "Unity" works and that the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) is in decline? I'd like to look at some numbers.



There appeared to be some improvements in the selection process of a Unity candidate by the Unity Coalition over their botched attempts in October. However, less than 200 people participated in this process. With 2747 total votes cast during this election that's less than 10% of the voting population deciding who should run as a Unity candidate.

The problem might simply be too many steps. The Unity process involved pasting a special code in one's profile so that the algorithm that was developed can count the vote. The link for the process was embedded in media articles and not in plain sight like the game's voting function normally is. So while it seems that the Unity Coalition had the goal of duplicating the game mechanics, they're not quite there yet because only metagame players might be aware of it's existence. The goal, now, should be to improve participation.



Meanwhile, the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) seems to be on the rise. They are the largest political party in the eUSA with a little over 700 members, and seized plurality in October's Congressional elections by expanding their percentage of seats to 30% by obtaining 867 votes. In the November presidential election, they achieved 32% with 890 votes. The AFA is clearly hitting above their weight class with these numbers and are growing in influence. The only Unity party that can say the same is the American Military Party (AMP). With only a little over 600 members, they obtained 738 votes in the October Congressional elections and it most certainly contributed strongly to Cerb's victory since he's also a member of AMP. I'm aware that these numbers are conservative estimates, because not every party member is an active player which makes the influence these parties have, much more pronounced since their active memberships are smaller than their numbers suggest.

Now, before you readers think I'm blind and didn't notice that AFA obtained nearly 46% of the vote during the last presidential election; and I understand that it might make one conclude that influence of AFA is in decline, but I don't think so. I think one needs to consider that only two candidates were running and the selection of the Unity candidate was heavily criticized and it was an individual who tended to be polarizing to the political climate of the eUS. It's easy to imagine that Unity supporters might vote for an opposing candidate out of spite; which begs the question: "How "unified" is the Unity Coalition?". So I think that October's election might be an anamoly as long as the Unity Coalition can select electable candidates.

Here's why I think eUS politics is still up for grabs. This month's election had four candidates. The candidates that weren't AFA or Unity only obtained about 8% of the vote in total. One can infer that about 8% of the two-clicking population has little idea of the political environment in this country and there's little hope that any candidate could reach out to them. Their votes are completely random. The other 10% (roughly) that participated in the metagame to select Cerb as a Unity candidate, likely voted for Cerb. That left about 82% of the two-clicking public that have some awareness of the political environment through shouts, media articles, daily orders and other avenues of communication ingame. That's a huge margin that can easily swing an election depending on how candidates conduct their campaigns.

That's free advice!