Analyses of our last Congress elections

Day 2,168, 06:24 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Weekstrom
The recent past
The last few months forum congress has been a very bad place to reside. Some will argue that it has never been a nice place perhaps as there is always discussion and a lot of different opinions. Fact is the latter is true but that’s part of every community. You need to discuss matters to come to the right solutions. Not necessarily only on congress, but congress is part of it. The last several months however there were no normal discussion. Every discussion there was got messed up by several mudthrowing events mainly focussing on GPN as a party that was blocking things. Or arguments congress was not representing the voice of the people or should even be illegal and didn’t want changes to preserve their (forum) power. This also was mainly focussed on GPN as some parties, or at least a few representatives that are active on forum, are continuously blaming GPN for anything that happens.

Well was GPN blocking things? No they were not. They simply have a large number of congress members democratically chosen by the people of the eNL and due to that can have a large influence on votes.

Was congress illegal? No of course not as they were democratically chosen albeit 7 months earlier. But that doesn’t make them illegal. There is even a rule that prevents congress members that are quitting the game holding a seat without being active as the party president may replace someone that becomes inactive by another party member. That way the number of seat a party has stays the same and congress keeps functioning.

With the first congress elections in months in sight there was even an atmosphere on forum that acting now had nu use as anything would change after the elections so decisions were postponed. Sometimes a proposal that was already rejected twice was already said to be brought to vote again after the elections instead of accepting the rejection.

Well where do we stand now?
We had our elections and big changes should be the result as GPN (and according to quite a lot of people the government also) would lose a lot of their power and we would finally get a congress that represents the wish of the people.
So here are the big changes that occurred;

Wait a minute. Where are those big changes now? Well there are no big changes. GPN kept the exact same number of seats just like DemNL and I&W. So apparently the congress did and still is representing the will of the voter as they granted power to GPN once again.
DemNL and I&W, although a big representative on forum when it comes to questioning GPN and the gov didn’t get extra power and Libertas, as party that was strongly focussing on the fact that the voice of the people were not heard got 2 seats as the fifth party people could vote on. Seats they took from DPP that had 3 the last elections as they were back then the fifth party.
That fifth spot was rather strange this elections by the way as Libertas was not placed fifth but sixth but during voting eRep decided they were the party we could vote on while the Bilderberg Group that actually was ranked fifth was neglected by the voting mechanism.
VVN was the only party that participated in both elections that actually saw a change in congress seats; They gained one.

So to sum it up; GPN remained in power, the strong opposition against GPN (DemNL, I&W and DPP/Libertas) lost a seat and the party that’s more in-between and that tries to look at what’s good for eNL instead of, so it sometimes seems, just state the opposite from rivalling parties gained a seat.

Now that is clear it’s time to finally respect the voice of the people and go back to work without the silly mudthrowing or power games some parties and people were playing. As called upon before by me and VVN; Let’s not focus on our differences but focus on our common goals. And added to that; Let’s not focus on our lawbook alone as several laws were laid down far back in time and are obsolete or should be changed as the game changed quite a lot over time as well. It would seem a part of congress and parties behind the representatives are trying to stick to them no matter what. Even when it endangers the future of our country. Now that we have a new congress and have a few region’s let’s try to adapt the law to the current needs instead of blocking the needs due to a law.

The latest elections brought something else to my attention as well.
The Netherlands have a small number of citizens. According to the internal numbers eRepublik presents it were 375 at the time of the elections. The actual number active will be much lower as that also includes players that are no longer playing but are not yet declared dead citizen by eRepublik (As my estimate is that dead citizens will not be counted anymore).
Estimating the number of really active players is hard. You could look at the number of members of political parties (171) could be an option, but that has nothing to do with activity. We could also look at the number of players gaining strength (Around 140-150 currently according to egov4you but we know that not all players are listed there so it will most likely be around 160-170) or at the number of voters in elections (roughly 110-120 currently). In all cases the numbers are much lower than the in-game number of active citizens suggests. As several people will not be able/willing to attend to a game on a daily basis the actual number playing must be somewhere between the in-game number and the number of people training and voting. Let’s assume the number of people actually playing at least once a week is 200.

If we use that number you could say that the number of players actually more or less active is around 53%. Given that fact we could expect every party having roughly that percentage of votes during elections. But since I expect that most if not all parties call upon their members to vote you should expect higher rates. Say 70% as no matter what you do there will always be members that are not willing or able to vote. Using that percentages you could expect the number of votes during elections as represented in the table below.


If we look at the election results however the numbers are quite different as you can see also in the table above. An analysis of every party we could vote on;

GPN

Scores higher than one might expect. There are a few possible reasons that come to mind for that;
- They have a very active party where almost any member is active on a daily bases and thus votes on his/hers party as well
- There way of working appeals to non party members as well

I guess both are in order.

DemNL

Scores roughly on the average you might expect from the whole country. A few thought popped to my mind for that;
- They have indeed a very low activity in their party. Much lower that the country average since they, or at least their Party president, is very active in promoting people to vote so during elections you might expect a large activity boost within the party.
- They have no appeal to the rest of eNL so they get no votes from non DemNL members which would also mean they are playing a game for themselves.
- People don’t believe in the party anymore which could be caused by two main reasons I guess. One being the fact that DemNL is, along with Libertas, the party that by far is being the most harsh in comments on GPN and the government which isn’t accepted by the rest of eNL. The second being the fact that the Party President has on several occasions already stated he would quit the game.
- DemNL members vote for different parties while still being a DemNL member for old times sake

My estimate is that the first three all apply, but I don’t think DemNL members vote for different parties then their own.

I&W

Scores higher then could be expected given their number of members. There are a few reasons that could be in order;
- They have a very active party where almost any member is active on a daily bases and thus votes on his/hers party
- There way of working appeals to non party members as well

My estimate is that the first is the major factor as the players from I&W I could check had all been active on election day.

VVN

Scores even higher than I&W for which I think the following reasons apply;
- They have a very active party where almost any member is active on a daily bases and thus votes on his/hers party
- There way of working appeals to non party members as well

My estimate is that both reasons do apply but a bit more emphasis on the second. Most likely due to the fact VVN has on several occasions asked parties to work together for the greater good of eNL and quit the fighting between our parties.

Libertas

Scores between the country average and the number you could expect when al party members active would vote on their own party. Quite a lot of thoughts popped to my mind for that but I’ll stick to the major ones;
- They have a very low party activity mainly caused by the way new members are recruited
- They have no appeal to the rest of eNL so they get no votes from non Libertas members which would also mean they are playing a game for themselves.
- People don’t believe in the party which could be caused by two main reasons I guess. One being the fact that Libertas is, along with DemNL, the party that by far is being the most harsh in comments on GPN and the government which isn’t accepted by the rest of eNL. The second being the fact that the Party President has a very controversial history.

I think these are all in order.

So where does that leave us when it comes to these parties?
GPN is still the party that dictates the way we work as they represent a major part of our citizens. Very active in the game and in politics as well. They cannot do that by themselves as they have no absolute power so they will need other congress members to get things done. It’s also clear however that they will most of the time not get the support of DemNL and I&W unless it’s something that can by no means be questioned. That leaves us in a stalemate position rather soon on several other occasions as these three parties proved to be unwilling to work together in the past. I fear that will harm our country further.

I&W although being the oldest party, still has a nice future as they keep on scoring votes from outside their party and are still active on a daily basis. The next few days we will see I&W rise in number again as with the newly elected congress many old Dutch players that fled the country will return now we have a few regions. And lots of those players will join I&W as they have been a member before. Sad to see some of them did not even bother to train for months so some older top Dutch players from a year ago or so are now much below average on several issues and will not be of much help on the battlefield nor will they be able to catch up anymore and will for that reason mainly be a glory from the past when it comes to in-game performance.

DemNL I fear is lost when they don’t change drastically. They simply don’t seem to appeal to the Dutch player anymore and seem to be stuck in a (mainly) forum political game and focus on themselves as analysed earlier in this article where my conclusion was they focussed on working in their own facilities instead of fighting and were, like I&W, mainly focussed on politics that now seems to be focussed mainly on forum as well. Let’s hope that will change for the better so one of the oldest Dutch parties (and players) will be saved as they are all very valuable assets to our country but should focus more on the “reality” of the game instead of a forum game only. Perhaps DemNL will gain a few members that return to eNL but I don't recall much DemNL members fleeing the country when we got occupied.

VVN seems to have a good future. They are not one of the biggest parties but are a constant factor in the Dutch landscape. Very active in-game, working in the background and just recently stepped a bit more in the spotlight. Focussing on unity, calling upon others to do so and working for the greater good of eNL for more than 1½ year now no matter who’s in charge of eNL. The weakness off VVN lies in the fact it's working to much on the backgroud. If that doesn't change they could be blown away by promotion teams from other parties that seem to have the time to publish loads of articles but have no priority on working for our countries future.

Libertas doesn’t seem to have a future. It consists mainly of the Party President who has tried to regain power ever since he was accused (but not found guilty! ) of the robbery of our treasure. I fear that for as long as Notie will try it will fail as he is too much damaged by past events. Apart from that I guess the amount of vote buying for articles, the harsh words against GPN/gov and the constant bribing of players to join him don’t appeal to the general player in eNL. It will fit better in say the US. Notie can however be a valuable asset to eNL due to the fact he has ways of attracting players to the game. Something he should do for the benefit of the whole country instead of a new attempt to start his own party and gain power. The next few days Libertas will most likely gain members just like I&W as players that left the country when we got occupied will return and join Notie again. Players that had their share of activity but sadly not one that brought unity.