Gandoor National Q&A [READ OP]

[Gandoor]

I do not take kindly to prank questions, thank you very much. And if this is a serious question, then I do not take kindly to the implication of terrorist threats against this nation, thank you very much.

We do not concern ourselves with what polluters take kindly to.

Do not reply to my posts.

[Australian rePublic]

Your flag seems to suggest that you're communist. Are you communist?

[Gandoor]

Your flag seems to suggest that you're communist. Are you communist?

OOC: Wait are you asking if I myself am a communist or is this still an in-character question? Cause it's hard to tell sorry.

[Australian rePublic]

Your flag seems to suggest that you're communist. Are you communist?

OOC: Wait are you asking if I myself am a communist or is this still an in-character question? Cause it's hard to tell sorry.

In character

[Gandoor]

Your flag seems to suggest that you're communist. Are you communist?

I am not a communist, I am a social democrat who believes in working to reform capitalism.

[Opelia]

An young opelian journalist asks:

What percentage of the GDP is destined for the armed forces?, Gandoor has a missile defense system?, What guarantees does the working class in Gandoor have? (health, education, salaries, vacations, etc)

[Ecofasciste Archipel]

We do not concern ourselves with what polluters take kindly to.

Do not reply to my posts.

Ok fine, we just declare war and all your shipping is fair game for our u-boats.

[Gandoor]

An young opelian journalist asks:

What percentage of the GDP is destined for the armed forces?, Gandoor has a missile defense system?, What guarantees does the working class in Gandoor have? (health, education, salaries, vacations, etc)

1. 2% of the annual GDP is currently spent on the National Military of the Democratic Republic of Gandoor. This amounts to a total annual military budget of 31.5 billion GDY (US$57.1 billion).

2. A missile defence system is not in place in the Democratic Republic and the defence policy of our nation has historically been opposed to the implementation of one.

3. The guarantees of the working class is the same as the guarantees granted to all citizens and permanent residents of Gandoor.

The Gandoor National Health Insurance provides free at point of use medical treatment for all citizens and permanent residents. Employers must offer a minimum of 21 paid consecutive sick days for all workers and a minimum of 90 days of paid recovery days for instances where someone would be out of work for greater than three weeks. Employers must also offer a minimum of 60 weeks of paid maternity leave for new parents regardless of gender.

Access to post-secondary institutions is made available to all within Gandoor and, much like compulsory education, post-secondary institutions are funded by the state with the majority of universities not requiring any tuition fees to be paid and, for those that do require tuition, the average annual tuition is only 550 GDY (US$995.56).

All workers are guaranteed a minimum hourly income of 11.06 GDY (~US$20), which has been the minimum wage since 1 January 2024. This applies regardless of the age of the worker or if the job is part-time or full-time.

All employers are required to offer workers a minimum of 25 paid vacation days per year and all workers (with the exception of those in essential services) are guaranteed a day off on Labour Day and the ten Public Holidays (in the Democratic Republic, the term 'Public Holiday' when capitalised refers to generic days off designated by the government per the Public Holidays Law 1960 which do not have a meaning signified to them unlike the ten named and described public holidays).

Do not reply to my posts.

Ok fine, we just declare war and all your shipping is fair game for our u-boats.

No, it doesn't work like that. While it is not against the rules for you to unilaterally declare war on this nation, it does violate the principle of voluntary consent that serves as the base of all NS RP. That is, while you can say that you are declaring war on my nation, you cannot force me to play with you nor do anything against my will. I do not do any form of war RP nor do I recognise your nation in-character (of course, this nation canonically exists on RL Earth so I technically don't 'recognise' any nation as existing in-universe but I can fudge it for the purposes of things such as this Q&A thread or storefronts in GE&T)

You are now banned from posting in this thread.

[Australian rePublic]

What types of climate/s does your nation have?

[Gandoor]

What types of climate/s does your nation have?

As one might expect from a nation located entirely in the tropics, our nation is almost entirely tropical, with large portions of our nation being classified as a tropical rainforest climate, with a not-insignificant part of Gandoor being a tropical monsoon climate. Tropical savanna climate, on the other hand, is limited to only a small region in southern Gandoor.

Outside of the tropical climate that dominates our nation, our few mountainous regions is considered to be subtropical highland, which results in cooler temperatures on average and, on some mountaintops, snow is not an unheard of occurrence during winter months.

[Daniel-Franklin]

Thoughts on the present Franklinite Civil War? I have heard that some Gandoorian businesses have expanded into rebel territory.

- Jacob Turner, eldest son of General Adam Turner, the Supreme Commander

[Conservative Christian American States]

Are Christians persecuted in your nation like they are in other atheistic regimes or are you a nation that tolerates the one true faith?

[Gandoor]

Thoughts on the present Franklinite Civil War? I have heard that some Gandoorian businesses have expanded into rebel territory.

- Jacob Turner, eldest son of General Adam Turner, the Supreme Commander

OOC: Sorry, questions like this are not answered due to Gandoor existing on RL Earth, not on NationStates Earth. As an aside, the proper term for something relating to Gandoor is 'Gandoorese'.

Are Christians persecuted in your nation like they are in other atheistic regimes or are you a nation that tolerates the one true faith?

Atheistic regime? That's news to me, I was under the assumption that this nation was a secular state that maintains a separation of church and state. Regardless, the right for anyone within Gandoor to practice their religious beliefs is constitutionally enshrined, although one cannot violate anti-discrimination laws on the basis of religious belief.

[Macureus]

Do you have universal basic income in Gandoor?

- Anu Namin, First Commissar of the Socialist Union of Macureus

[Puski]

goonga ginga gunga gunga gin ga goong goong ging ga goong gan?!?!?! - crazed homeless Puskian citizen

[Gandoor]

Do you have universal basic income in Gandoor?

- Anu Namin, First Commissar of the Socialist Union of Macureus

There is currently no UBI system in place in the Democratic Republic, however some members of the Communist Party have proposed that Prime Minister-designate Park Sang-Hee's proposed plan to adjust the current unemployment allowance to a flat monthly allowance of 1100 GDY (~US$2022) should instead be granted to all Gandoorese citizens aged 20 and older, not just the unemployed.

goonga ginga gunga gunga gin ga goong goong ging ga goong gan?!?!?! - crazed homeless Puskian citizen

Ah, yes, thank you.

(Thought my staff were supposed to vet this type of nonsense from getting delivered to me)

[National Yorkshire]

"What is public transport like in Gandoor?"

[Gandoor]

"What is public transport like in Gandoor?"

There is a variety of public transport available in Gandoor. For shorter distances, we have buses (colloquially referred to simply as 'the transit'), trams, and subways and for longer distances we have airplanes and high-speed rail. There also exists ferry systems on many lakes and rivers and there is limited usage of helicopters for smaller distances.

All ground-based public transport is owned by the state in some capacity, with the bus and high-speed rail systems owned and managed by Gandoor Bus Services and Gandoor Rail, respectively. Trams and subway systems are typically owned and managed by either the cities they operate in or in a district-owned company that manages these services for multiple cities. Air and water public transport is mostly privatized, with the government having no stake in any form of water transport, although AirGandoor, the flagship airline of the Democratic Republic, (which flies domestically and internationally) is still under 65% state-ownership. (And Prime Minister-designate Park Sang-Hee supports the complete renationalization of AirGandoor)

All public transport is considered very clean, affordable (especially ground-based forms), and reliable way to get around our nation, with an average on-time efficiency rate of 93% when accounting for all types available.

[Late Roman Empire]

Do you have any craft or trade guilds, or collegia as we Romans call them, in Gandoor?

- Lucius Libanius, President of the Guild of Undertakers

[Gandoor]

Do you have any craft or trade guilds, or collegia as we Romans call them, in Gandoor?

- Lucius Libanius, President of the Guild of Undertakers

No, guilds never manged to establish themselves in Gandoor and, in the modern day, they have no reason to exist for us. (There are organizations which do call themselves guilds in existence in modern Gandoor, but they are just trade unions and not the type of guild you are referring to)

[Gandoor]

We are sad to announce that our nation's new Prime Minister, Park Sang-Hee, will be unable to answer any questions like her predecessor did, due to needing to focus on the running of the Government. (Although we will add, she has admitted she may, once in a while, ask for questions which she will answer personally, although these may only be occasional occurrences)

However - this Q&A shall continue and questions shall be answered by a team of volunteers tasked with the job of answering whatever queries that the international community may have about our nation.

[Luziyca]

Last year, your predecessor mentioned that Yontan-Hon or the Hook Region was the poorest region in the country, and you were investing in economic opportunities, such as tourism and electronics manufacturing, to help improve their lives.

Have your government's policies to the region changed since the election of the current Prime Minister of Gandoor? Or will they be staying the same?

[Gandoor]

Last year, your predecessor mentioned that Yontan-Hon or the Hook Region was the poorest region in the country, and you were investing in economic opportunities, such as tourism and electronics manufacturing, to help improve their lives.

Have your government's policies to the region changed since the election of the current Prime Minister of Gandoor? Or will they be staying the same?

At present, Mrs. Park's Government is maintaining the policies of her predecessor in regards to the Hook Region. While she is personally opposed to the notion of 'tax breaks' for corporations, she and her Government are aware that one has to work pragmatically at times, especially when it comes to improving the economic standings of a region, itself one of the major points in her Government's agenda.

[Natishna]

Did the Communist Party have any issues relating to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, early 1990s?

[Gandoor]

Did the Communist Party have any issues relating to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, early 1990s?

No. The Gandoor Communist Party predated the founding of any of the parties involved with the régimes in Eastern Europe, with the Eastern European parties closest to the founding of our nation's Communist Party being the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although in both cases one would need to count their predecessor parties for them to come within 20 years of the founding of our own party.

While it is admitted that, like many people and organizations, the Communist Party did have a positive view of the Soviet Union during the earlier years of their existence, there was never any formal relations between the Gandoor Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

That being said, after the end of the Petrikov régime (who attempted to transform Gandoor into a state modelled after the USSR and the Eastern bloc), the Communist Party became more opposed to the Eastern Bloc régimes, although they never explicitly said so publicly, as the party platform (and indeed, our nation's overall platform during the Cold War) was officially neutrality, although it is accepted as a fact that our nation engaged with the democratic West much more than we did the East and our nation generally did not have diplomatic relations with most Eastern bloc countries (aside from the Soviet Union) due to fears that outsiders would see this as us supporting their governments.

All of this, accompanied with the additions that our Communist Party functionally ceased being an actual communist party by the 1930s in favour of democratic socialism (and even when it was a genuine communist party, it was never officially a Marxist party [although it did, and still does, acknowledge the influence of Marx on its founding]), led to there being no issues facing our own Communist Party after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. In fact, some members of the Communists even privately admitted hope that, in the future, left-wing governments would model themselves off Gandoor's own left-wing politics and government, and not that of the Soviet Union. Such hopes, thus far, have not been met.