Yeah, elections are ongoing, in case it wasn't mentioned here enough! After some drama over whether or not to allow secret ballots (yes), the nominations phase began and ended, and now they're into the voting phase.
So what do the races look like?
Prime Minister: Islands of Unity vs The Serres Republic
Foreign Affairs: Glen-Rhodes vs Somyrion
Regional Affairs: Pencil Sharpeners
Military Affairs: Roavin
So what's going on in these races?
Let's start from the least "exciting." Pencil Sharpeners is running a very clean cut campaign, built around consistency and reliability, and pushing for the traditional internal measures. There's not really anything spicy there.
The rest get a little more interesting.
In the MOFA race, Somy is running on a platform of "a positive approach to foreign affairs." Glen is running on goals including revamping the way the FA department works to...what appears to be a similar model but with more people he picks, and aggressively increasing alliances. Glen also wants to "make the cabinet accountable for it's activity" and make internal votes "more transparent." More interestingly, though, both campaigns speak of ignoring this very thread. Somy speaks of "putting the past behind us" and ignoring GP because it's like "channeling our energy towards a brick wall" (oddly enough, we've had a similar experience trying to get any answers from TSP on things!!), while Glen is more aggressive - this thread is "dominated by trolls and enemies, who constantly derail our embassy thread, twist words to stoke controversy, or just “shitpost” as if that’s the main form of interaction in the game." It's a :waste of time: to have a public presence, and TSP should focus on offsite-to-offsite communications. Also, we're threadjacking, baiting, and trolling, but the "NS mods either don’t know how or don’t want to enforce" the rules properly. That's the highlights of that race. Interestingly, you can see some lines forming - Serres endorses Glen.
But that's just the surface.
In the PM race, things are hot. IoU wants to push military neutrality again, strong RA and FA initiatives, and quickly drew wide criticism, largely around inexperience and supposedly vague plans. Meanwhile, Serres wants to push "unity, communication, security." This includes more whole-cabinet efforts to guide ministry missions, more communication in and out of the cabinet, and trying to diversify upper-level involvement, where there appears to be a shortage of qualified and willing people (they might want to look at the people who leave or are run out of that rank). Serres received praise and endorsements from GR and Roavin, with little questions.
Saving the best for last, let's look at the Military role, where things got spicy. How is an unopposed race spicy? We'll get there. Roavin has hinted at a huge secret operation in this thread, which is not couping Balder, yet, supposedly. Where it gets interesting is the third page. Somy shows up, and says the following:
Let's summarize that. The cabinet, for some reason or another, appears to have tied the matter of removing false claims about me made in the course of my proscription to concurrent reissuing of a new proscription against me, delegate both off-cabinet to Roavin, and then is blaming him for not actually doing so. Somy also notes that Roavin created a group DM between himself and the cabinet to handle "serious cabinet policy discussions" and "even preliminary deicsions," but refused to allow access to IoU as MORA, who then got left out of formal cabinet decisions made in this secret shadow cabinet, and then back-justified it by claiming he might be a spy. Once more. A shadow cabinet including Roavin, not an elected cabinet member, made formal cabinet decision, while excluding an actual elected cabinet member. Wow! Further, it's said that cabinet proscription-related details were withheld from the currently outgoing actual cabinet by Roavin, member of the prior cabinet, because only Roavin and Glen get the details (but for some reason aren't just issuing their own CRS proscription, as the Proscriptions Act enables). That's a bombshell of a post.
In reply, Roavin placates on the proscriptions matter, saying it is almost done, defends keeping evidence from even the cabinet, further accuses IoU of being a security risk, and overall doesn't really refute anything. Apparently, He and IoU also both posted some logs from this chat where there's some tension over his addition, after Somy put IoU in it anyways...
[5:17 PM] Islands of Unity: Roavin I would like to know why you felt it appropriate to post this and act on it
[5:17 PM] Islands of Unity: (Screenshot of Roavin saying "Islands ain't getting in here.")
[5:17 PM] Somyrion: I'd like to know too.
[5:18 PM] Islands of Unity: This is the thing that hurt me the most
[5:18 PM] Somyrion: I'd appreciate if you'd answer it in your MoMA campaign thread, though.(edited)
[5:18 PM] Roavin: Ask the question there and I'll answer.
[5:18 PM] Roavin: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[5:18 PM] Roavin: You're saying this as if this is some bomb shell that will kill me politically.
[5:18 PM] Roavin: Come on.
...which has led to Roavin reporting both of them for Espionage.
That's about what I've got directly regarding Election Coverage. Hope it was enjoyable. No point tallying votes so far and going into that, given secret ballots.
I'm not done yet, though. Since I've had zero luck getting any response from the Cabinet here in this thread as to why false and defamatory claims against me made by them have remained posted, I decided to ask everyone except Roavin and Glen, whose positions on the matter are loud and well known, about their stance on the matter!
PS was to the point. They'd like to look into giving me a proper response. Thanks, PS!
Somy basically reiterated that the Cabinet for whatever reason pawned it off to Roavin, and Roavin has not finished it. I remain unsure why removing defamatory claims against me cannot be done before they try to proscribe me again.
The next two conversations are longs.
IoU seemed out of the loop, probably due to appealingly being excluded from the shadow cabinet with Roavin for most of his term. That said, he promised me some progress!
The entire cabinet is pushing to get that statement edited to be less defamatory in private channels at my behest. Im not announcing anything publicly until we have a professional and properly developed statement that is both tangible and satisfying for those offended. The big reason the original statement was so silly was because it was rushed. I'm not make that mistake with my own initiative.The conversation I had with Serres was kinda slippery. I got a lot of big promises, but also a lot of excuses told and contradicting stories. I was less than satisfied. The whole cabinet has been working on it, but IoU doesn't know about it? The Cabinet can't stop defaming be because doing so could be "rushed" even after months? For some reason I *never* got a proper explanation for, the CRS and Courts need to all approve the cabinet removing lies about my character? This is in the law, despite me actually citing law to the contrary? I got accused of spying for citing public information? Maybe I can get a rapid removal of false claims post-election even if the re-issuing is not done? This hasn't been done any of the prior times I've asked such, because....?
Well, you're welcome to read all these, and consider how different people answered the same question.
Now that is all I have.
