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I'll congratulate Kokawa already for a deserved electoral victory. I laid plenty of expectations for Sophia and her campaign, but unfortunately I was disappointed to her continuous absence and the almost complete lack of her campaign. As good candidate as Sophia would be if she was more active, her current activity isn't enough to "let" her be the president, so that the eJapanese affairs wouldn't stay still. I gave my vote to Sophia, as I promised when she signed up as a candidate for the elections. However, the better one won.

In the future, I'd like to see a little more democratic way of electing the president, so that the citizens wouldn't have to decide between two half-active candidates, neither which have barely campaigned nor told what concrete innovations and solutions they have for developing eJapan - a country almost on the same level than countries just joined eRepublik - and improve the standard of eLiving of the active population.


At this point few of my IRC buddies are already like this

Pros and cons from the past term:

The previous term was already a big step forward from Akki's term. We can thank partly the congress, which has tried to get the wheels of eJapan rolling, but the main thanks goes to Kokawa of course. At least in the beginning of his term he actively tried to build a solid ground for development in eJapan. Thanks to Kokawa, we have a forum that is clearer and the security of information level has been lowered, so that an ordinary citizen has a chance to affect affairs of his/her homeland. Governmental information even without the congress-presented governmental newspaper (which is still expected to appear by the way) improved considerably and in my opinion this is the biggest alteration from the time before Kokawa. The media has been clearly more active now that governmental information has increased activity. The government has dared to talk about on-going changes or changes that have already gone through. Before this, every inch of information had to be digged by force and usually with the following result: Akki's royal middle finger staring at your face. Surely there is room for improvement, but the direction is right.

Nevertheless, from where I stand towards the end of his term Kokawa's enthusiasm decreased and I have often heard the curses because of presidential absence from couple of ministers; questions were not answered (even in days) and stuff has been standing still. Also the innovation side has clearly been cast aside and these couple of weeks we have gone forward with the pace of a snail, but at least we are going forward and like I stated before, we have the right direction. Even Rome wasn't build in a day.


Before Kokawas term our army was a normal snail. Now it has a stik.

One thing I enjoyed about Kokawas's term was his openness and selflessness. He has dared to say his opinions straight and with reasons, and if someone has had valid and reasonable arguments against, he has been wise enough to be able to change his opinion, thus enabling development and avoiding useless debates. Even tough some particular congress representatives and his/her ways has not pleased Kokawa, everyone has had the right to present opinions and thoughts in front of him without him sticking stubbornly on his own point of view and sending the entire government to spit sentences like: "I agree with the president. You are wrong. Nothing has to change if the change doesn't come from us, the government." This is the way politics and democracy should work and congress being the organ advocating change. Of course the government can openly present ideas of change but in the end congress decides on everything except affairs that has to be decided as soon as possible, like helping an ally or sudden home country-crisis that requires fast action.

So as not to go completely praising Kokawa, let me introduce some negative sides as well. Good president consists of four things. The first thing is activity, and in the case of Kokawa this term has been average at most. Apparently IRL-business has eaten lots of his time. This is a matter where there's room for huge improvement. In practice, the president ought to be the most active person in the country. A person, that has the chance to be present or can be summoned present to deal with internal affairs almost around the clock. If he has to be online five a.m. to press the retreat button and before that has to go through negotiations with an ally, he will be there and that’s it.

The second thing is the knowledge of the game mechanics. Here I can't say actually anything, because I'm not part of the government and I'm not there following how does he organise and build up the decision making, but at least any stupid solutions hasn't been made, ruling the trade embargo to Sweden out, so I trust that this fellow has a decent knowledge of the game mechanics.

Foreign relations are the third one. This is for certain the case where Kokawa's cabinet has been at its best. Foreign relations have been working relatively well and alliances have been signed. For example, eSouth-Korea joined eJapan and many german immigrated to eJapan thanks to a efficient foreign policy. Thumbs up for foreign affairs. Though, here on the eve of elections we have a pretty weird situation, where the government did not prepare any possible help for allies around the eWorld even tough we have eJapan safe from intruders.


Even thought few Asian "leaders" hasn't approved all Kokawa's arguments, our foreign policy has been good.

The fourth thing is innovative character and desire to develop, enhance and take forward. This goes actually with the matter of activity. Usually, if there is no activity, there is no time to develop his/her country. Despite the solid beginning, the previous term could've been able to be a lot better and above all faster operation regarding development. eJapan in eRepublik is developing country and we have a vast ground to sow.

Actually in association with the previous points we can move on to the next one; the secretaries. Even if the president were goofy as hell, good secretaries can patch weak spots. In the case of Kokawa, he should've took few really hard working and trustworthy citizens to his cabinet to fill in his lack of activity and couple of masters of the game mechanics (one for military and one for economy) and at least one person who knows numbers and furthermore how numbers and calculations can be used in advantage of this game.

This failed pretty badly last term. Excluding Oraizan and probably Tohru the rest of the cabinet was very hard to reach and the proficiency of InfernoDS was put to use not until when the congress asked. Economy was in pretty bad condition from Akki's term and there were no personnel in the cabinet with required skills of the mechanics and economy to be able to seize economical affairs and do something about them immediately. The case required various days of debating on the IRC and in the forums by citizens and congress. The huge responsibility of the army were given to an unskilled man, who on top of that wrote his own blog despite taking care of governmental business and his assistant took care of the business in two days where he had the whole Akki's term to do it. Instead of choosing a professional cabinet to support Kokawas weak spots, a media cabinet was chosen. A cabinet, that is praised in the media, but not a very efficient one.


This kitten had to learn that problems will not be solved by just staring them. Hopefuly our president will be as smart as kitten was.

So the cabinet shouldn't be a bunch of famous people from the eJapanese media, but a pack of extra arms for the president to do and aid in those affairs which he/she don't have time or skills to do. Surely we must remember that lots of acts from the secret halls of the cabinet will remain secret with their contribution, but the previous cabinet showed weakness, especially the way of handling economy, organising and militaristic skills.

A big plus to Oraizan and her secretarial work. Active and efficient girl, which I definitely hope to get re-pointed to the cabinet. Yet if we were able to get the extra sensitivity away, and improved her knowledge of the game and above all get her used to the fact that in politics not everyone can agree on everything and sometimes someone else can be correct, we would have a girl of presidential potential 😉

The work of the rest of the cabinet has been very average at most at least from congress- and citizen-point of view. What I don't of course know is what e.g. pipo and Tohru accomplished overseas and InfernoDS wasn't in the cabinet long enough to be able to thank or criticise him.

I hope for more accuracy in the selection of the cabinet and a handful of activity and energy to get things done. Good luck for the next term!

The Congress

Another thing I'd like to talk about and hoped that Sophia would bring up in her nonexistent election campaign, is the inefficiency of the congress. The congress exists mostly just for the reason itself and for fun, and which only purpose seems to be pressing either the green or the red button depending do you agree or disagree on something.


Our congress is like this cute little bunny. We don't have nothing else to do than pick our noses in your field.

This has got to change. The congress in this game is the BIGGEST and THE MOST INFLUENTAL organ, without e.g. the president has no real quorum within the game so this should be fulfilled also in the structure of the government of eJapan. The congress is part of the government which makes the game interesting for the active, thus keeping them playing. In my opinion, it is even a bit ridiculous to question and take authority from the congress to a few people, considering the lack of efficacy of the previous cabinet to accomplish things.

That’s why I suggest the following. Every congressman/woman need to have the right to be able to start a debate on any topic whatsoever and the congress has the right to carry out the decision through forums if the proposal is found reasonable and it has the support from the congress. With this, we could save months of waiting when the secretary of the concerned management-area is writing his personal blog and the congress has no right to take things forward.

Affairs and organisations will be much more functioning, when there are 20 heads designing them rather than giving almost arbitrary right to decide everything related to the management-area to a just one person. It all works faster and more efficient that way. We can get more life inside the congress if they have actually something to do in the forums and they know that votes concerning the country are held there. This also would increase secretaries’ time to take care of their own, more important affairs, when they don't have to concentrate on handling everything in the development of the army, foreign policy and economy.

So I suggest a clear structural change in the decision making process, where the president has the right to ignore the congress ONLY when there is a decision to be made with enormous pace, or no time to debate and/or vote at least that 24 hours.


Shall we do something about this? Pretty please?!

Isn't it the most reasonable way of increasing activity to let the active people have some responsibility so they'd have a reason to play this game?