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Dear fellow citizens,
in this edition, the correspondents of La Graticola put OKayOk and MCKitKat,the two candidates in the next presidential elections ,on the fire with 3 questions asked by our editorial staff and 3 questions of free choice that each candidate asked his opponent.
This work was carried out in support of the increase in publishing activity and to allow newcomers to learn more about the Belgian political sphere.





ECONOMY
1) How do you plan to manage the budget during your term?
-Awareness / origin / resource management.
-How to support growth, what programs and under what conditions.

WAR
2) What are your military policies?
- Current TW and new strategies / partners.
-Press the right button when needed : who, when, why.

COMMUNITY
3) As in all countries, the community is a fundamental part of the game dynamics.
How do you plan to revive its fortunes in numerical and playful terms?
-Social help programs.
-Immigration.
-Media and institutional communications.



ECONOMY
In terms of the economy, a simple look at the GDP since the concessions have been implemented shows that this is the best way to improve our economy. This is why I will ensure that these concessions stay in place and ensure that relations with our concession partners remain intact.
I will also be looking at appointing a Reserve Bank Governor that will report back on finances used to the Minister of Finance, vet requests for money etc…
In terms of money in the Reserve bank, This should not be under the country of the executive branch of government. Congress needs to take its rightful place as the gate-keeper of the country's finances. We will be looking at systems that work well to get congress to clear payments before they happen, but not in a way that bogs us down in red-tape.
I will also be looking into programs that will support and help people start businesses by offering government loans for startup and upgrade costs. We need to be a government that invests in its players and this is a great way of doing that.
Bringing awareness to Belgium is also vital. We need to continue attracting new players to our country but ensure that these players are here for the right intentions and will work with us to make our economy grow, to increase our tax base and to make more products available to players in our market.
I am pleased with the way that taxes are structured currently but that is in the domain of Congress to decide.

WAR
We are a peaceful country not in conflict with anyone and this is the way that I would like to keep it. I will not have any expansionist policy in government as we simply do not have the strength to run such a military program.
Attracting high strength players to our shores will ensure that there are players who can do damage if, God Forbid, we are ever attacked. I will continue with our current MPPs and seek new MPPs to improve our defensive capability.
Training Wars are vital to Development of our military strength and will be continued as is.


COMMUNITY
We will continue to bring innovative, fun ideas into the game such as Lotto. Programs that give prizes to those that write articles, get the highest damage in a week, post the best article about Belgium in foreign media will be encouraged and supported by the government. Obviously such programs require a budget and are dependent on funds being available.
I would also like to foster an environment of goodwill to all players. A culture of quality mentorship, food assistance, weapon assistance and mentorship programs within government ministries will ensure that all players in this country feel welcome and continue to play the game with vigor.
Immigration is vitally important to create a growing, competitive country which is an active country.
One of the most important and vital tasks I will be faced with if elected is building multi-partisan bridges to ensure that we all work together for the betterment of eBelgium in a spirit of reconciliation and peace. A house divided cannot stand and if there is one thing I can do that will be most important, this healing is it.



ECONOMY
The biggest hope is to keep our income from the concessions stable. Our concessions are the biggest part of our income followed by our taxes. From there, it's all about spending the money to help our players as well as keeping some in reserve in case of events or extraordinary emergencies happening.
Most of our budget will go into the Belgian House Aid Program: Depending on the participants we have to count at least 1 million every month. The program will be the same as it used to be, however we will try and add some more requirements to boost activity within our community.
I’d like to keep a small budget of 30k to sign MPPs as well as any remaining money of that particular budget to remain to fund Trivia Nights as well as Media Contests.
It is important to keep a reserve of around 300 to 400k for ingame events so that we can organise our players to participate in those events, but also in case of emergency funding.
That leaves us a budget of around 400-500k surplus: That money will be used to fund a brand new remake of the BAF program, the Belgian Air Force!
We’re going to nationalize the Belgian Air Supplies which were provided by Curlybear, increase the amount of daily food he provided and offer a weekly cash reward for those that participate in the program.
We’re looking at a daily supply of 600 q5 Food as well as a weekly cash reward of 5k although it will depend on how much budget we will have at our disposal.
We’re going to develop the requirements to apply for the BAF as well as for the BHA but they are going to be tied to increased activity in our community. I believe these programs offer the best opportunity we, as a state, have to get players to become more active. I believe it is a small effort in order to receive a very generous help that we provide. It's a win-win situation.
The Air Rounds will offer the most fun and impact for our younger players and prioritizing their hit in those battles will be very important. The usage of Trivia Nights as well as Media Contests is another incentive to become active and get to know the community. The Belgian House Aid will provide the energy recovery and energy pool required to support our players to train, fight and work at an increased rate!

WAR
We’re going to continue in our current path. We’ve had wonderful TW relations with the Netherlands and Germany and I do not want to break or strain those relations. They’ve both been reliable in starting their TWs with us )sth we can’t say of ourselves this month). I also would like to jeep the current amount of partners that we have. I believe it's important to continue the current policy which we have had so far: especially since it allows us to keep long-term friendships up and running. We don’t want to get involved in alliance politics, I did it once and despite some amazing memories it was a mess. As we also rely a lot on our concessions and our trade partners, it's better to stay neutral on any alliance politics.
In terms of military policies, I’d like to restart the Belgian Air Supplies. It was a very well used program that helped our fighters in the air battles. Together with our TWs we will be able to provide our fighters ample opportunities to fight and win medals. We also have a very fair policy regarding the Battle Hero medals and as long as all our fighters agree and respect those rules we have more than enough opportunities to keep our fighters happy.
It is quite clear that pressing the button to start wars at the right time is vitally important. Every war, including TW needs to be managed, and that is much harder to do when it's ungodly hours and most of your damage dealers are doing such unimportant and useless stuff as sleeping or working.
Another important reason, where we attack. If a country is running multiple wars it's important to not block a war by attacking a region we shouldn’t attack. It would be even worse if that region ends up being taken because of bad management. Imagine if that’s a resource region, it would create a mess of things.
And this brings us to another important factor: Damage and Energy. Our current situation is terrible. We either have two defensive wars where our fighters can’t go all out, or we have two offensive battles where our fighters have to go all out on both battles to win. We need to balance it back to where we have one of each to allow our fighters to spend their energy.

COMMUNITY
As already mentioned, our goal is to increase activity and therefore tying our social welfare programs to increased participation in our community seems like the way to go. We want to reward players that put the effort to get to know our community and that also contribute to the environment we are in. A happy and active welcoming community is to the benefit of us all!
Transparency is key, so the government will publish its expenses and programs participation each week as well as inform the citizens of what has happened in those weekly bulletins. The government members will also be active to provide answers to questions, be it on the weekly bulletin or in our Discord channel.
We want to push the media participation with a reward program for our articles, as well as organising events to increase community interaction, be it through Trivia or Game Nights. An active community chat will also help in solving problems and solving misunderstandings as well as providing ample help and advice for players, old and new.
Lastly, in regards to immigration, we want to give Congress the ability to clear immigration concerns through a Congressional Committee with proportional representatives of the parties. Their job is to debate and decide about Applications, and a vote from the Committee Members will prove Applications. The Committee will appoint a Chairman whose job is to talk to the applicant, as well as do further inquiries into his citizenship request and talk to Belgian citizens that can testify. The Chairman will be responsible to start and close votes as well as give the authorization to accept applications once the Committee has voted in favor of accepting any application. This should not only increase the activity and importance of Congress but also provide safer immigration. Fundamental is that players agree to this way.




OkayOk asks:

1: ATO ruled this country almost uncontested for 4 years. During this time, we heard little to nothing from the ruling party. What will you do differently?

2: If you make any change whatsoever from how ATO did politics and governance, is that an admittance that ATO got it wrong for 4 years?

3: We have been told by you and many members of your party that HOPE is a PTO party because we believe in safe immigration to promote growth and activity. If you truly believe this, why did your government abandon ship and impeach your president? Is this not a sign that you do not take the wellbeing of this country seriously?

MCKitKat:
1)
I disagree with the notion that ATO did little to nothing. They did a lot of things and communicated what was necessary to the community. For what I will be doing “differently”, see my answers to Jarabe’s questions above.
2)
If I decide to put more salt on my dish than usual, does that make my previous dishes and the amount of salt I used wrong? I’d say no. Everybody has their strengths and mine is the political aspect. So therefore I like to prioritise the media while others tend to be more focussed on the military or economic aspect of the game. Doesn’t mean their approach is wrong, just as a dish can have more or less salt. It’s just a different preference.
If you read my proposals, it’s in large part a continuation of the very successful work put in by the previous ATO governments added with my specific preferences in the game. I have always been very fond of community actions and interacting with people, its what made me stay in this game for as long as I did. I was never a fighter, nor interested in the economic aspect. Consider this playing to my strength and using the expertise of the previous government to add to the strengths of my government should I be elected.
3)
It is very difficult to take a question like this seriously, considering that the wellbeing of this country is being challenged by an inactive government unable to support its citizens as well as a President stuck in the past who sees a giant conspiracy at fault instead of realizing that she’s just not a good president.
Since I’ve read the HOPE manifesto regarding Safe Immigration I’d like to point out three specific things:
They have never defined what they understand or define as “Safe Immigration”.
They wish to retain the immigration growth through social programs. However, we have yet to see any programs under HOPE leadership that push for growth. Such programs such as the BHA have been abandoned and no alternatives proposed other than a non-feasible and highly questionable lottery in terms of the ToS.
They wish to see increased activity and involvement of all those that live in Belgium, yet the people they brought through their “Safe Immigration” initiative have been some of the least active in our society.
So the HOPE manifesto is opposed by the very actions of its members, including OKayOK as CP candidate and party president.
So what we encounter here is mass immigration, without any transparency of a silent mass that mostly end up joining HOPE, show no activity other than vote in the elections. In the long run, the party that keeps this dubious behaviour up, will win, especially considering our current position.
The ATO government has done a lot for Belgium and we now have active proof of the inability of HOPE to rule a country. We’ve seen a complete lack of social programs, a complete downfall in transparency, we’ve seen lies and slander from the very top.
This is a party that with its very actions contradicts its Manifesto and when given the chance to showcase their ideas and plans, utterly fails to do anything except hide behind the same excuses.
HOPE has failed to realize that they have been in charge and have done nothing for the well-being of this country. They have done the contrary of their Manifesto, which puts them squarely in the position of a dictatorship.
In the meantime ATO has seen its moral position strengthened and has kept supporting its members in a shadow government while also dealing with issues the government has failed to undertake. Our members have and still are taking care of the concessions showing fully well that the well-being of Belgium has always remained our utmost priority.

MCKitKat asks:

1:The current government with you as Prime Minister has been in charge for around 10 days. Why have there been no proposed programs despite telling us all that programs were ready to go?

2:Why have the players your party has brought in, despite your claims that you want safe immigration of active players, not shown any activity. They have remained silent, which to me seems contrary to HOPE’s goal of increasing activity.

3:Your party has said in its manifesto that it would appoint experienced and competent members to its government. I assume that as Party President you will continue on this path. Certain members of the government that you are currently supervising don’t seem to show any qualifications for their positions or have shown a lack of competence. Other positions remain entirely unassigned. How do you explain this and will you as President do anything about this? Appoint new members to the government?

OkayOk:

1)
Well, as you are fully aware, we had no access to the government orgs so had no way of accessing funds in a way that was above board. What we have done, which is more that has been achieved in the last 4 years, is implement a system of Consultative Articles that informs the community about what is happening in government. We have started a Lotto project that will be used to run a food bank for new and struggling players. BHA is back online now, and applications are open. This is because the org situation has been sorted out. The community is way more active since HOPE was forced to take over after ATO decided, strangely, to impeach their own government. Articles are pumping, people are commenting and activity is way up.

2)
HOPE’s immigration policy is to look for players that are unsatisfied with their current home and are looking for a new home where they can grow. You might see, which is all too common in this game, that many of them are two clicking. We are constitaly in communication with these players in our party, and there are players (the interviewer of this article for instance) that came here and are active. If we want these players to be active, this is up to all of us to involve them, to befriend them, to give them responsibility and make them feel wanted. We have achieved this on a party level, but this does need to be achieved on a country level. I would be interested to know if MCKitkat has bothered to befriend any of them. Send them a message and ask if there is any way that she can help them, support them despite their party. This heart of goodwill is what has been lacking in this country and this needs to change.

3)
I cannot talk about the current administration beyond that it is December, a time when players are generally inundated with Real Life issues such as family visits, holidays etc. We were ready to take the government but we did not win. People likewise made other priorities.
In terms of me, if elected, I have already interviewed all members of HOPE as to if they want to be involved, and that a requirement of being in government is that they are active on Discord or Telegram, and that they must be willing to report back on what they are doing, and report back to the community. I have also extended an invitation to certain non-HOPE players who are really assets to this country and whose experience cannot be replaced. I hope that they take up my offer and that they will be on-board to a multi-party cabinet for the betterment of eBelgium.