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by The Kingdom of The Islamic Country of Honour. . 383 reads.

The Islamic Country of Honour for Prime Minister! (March 2021)

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

The Islamic Country of Honour’s Roadmap For The Region In The Next Four Months as Prime Minister

This roadmap has been created by The Islamic Country of Honour, the Home Affairs Minister from July 2020 up until now, and a former Senator from August 2019 to October 2019, and again from November 2019, to January 2020


Credit goes to Rivogna for this really nice flag Masha'Allah!

Why I am calling it a roadmap, instead of a manifesto?

Manifestos have in the recent past, gained notoriety for being associated with promises not meant to be kept and just mere election gimmicks, but I don’t want it to be like that. I want this dispatch to serve as material that will guide me on how I’ll progress with the mandate I am seeking. I want this dispatch to be a roadmap to the immediate future of our region.

What is my main aim during these four months?


My prime focus will be on fixing the issues concerning our internal affairs. For too long, we have only relied on Foreign Policy and Legislative success to push us ahead, but what’s the use of legislating if we can’t build a strong internal core. Whenever one goes to NS Politics on Discord, most would see foreign affairs issues or legislative issues being discussed but it’s about time we also finally take the initiative of rejuvenating the Executive through strengthening its internal components. For us to improve on the gains we have made so far Alhamdulillah, it’s imperative for us not to become complacent and always focus on improving to the next level. Sky’s the limit after all! ! Strengthening ourselves internally will also make us stronger on the foreign stage, so that’s the approach we should take. We can’t give a second preference to our internal components anymore.

Explaining the Structure of the Executive

The Cabinet: The cabinet will be the most important organ of the Executive, and thus the main decision-making body of The Executive Branch. The four ministries under it will be the Ministry of Home Affairs, Culture Ministry, and Justice Ministry, and Foreign Affairs Ministry. Each Ministry will be led by a Minister appointed by the Prime Minister and they will be assisted by a Deputy Minister. As Prime Minister, I will encourage my Ministers to prioritize delegating tasks to its staff rather than making two-three people do all the work. This leads to efficiency as the work will be done faster and not only that, it also leads to greater participation of the citizens in the Ministry’s works, thus ensuring an engaged citizenry. I will, however, leave it up to the Ministers to determine how they decide to set their Ministry up, as, in my view, they should be given adequate operational independence while the Prime Minister will keep a regular look at the progress of each Ministry to ensure they are putting in their best!

The Secretariats: The Secretariats will be the second-most important branch of the Executive. There will be two secretariats, Secretariat of Role-play and Worldbuilding, and Secretariat of Defense. They will be semi-autonomous organizations, which means they’ll be mostly independent of the Cabinet, and will be allowed to chart their own course by themselves. They will be led by a Secretary, and the Secretary will have the final say on how he/she wishes to organize his/her secretariat. The Prime Minister will only intervene in their affairs if it affects the functioning of any other Ministry of the Cabinet.

The PMO Departments: The PMO Departments will be run directly from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and it will be headed by a person delegated by the PMO. The Head of the Department will not be confirmed by the Congress (which also saves the time of the Congress) and will be appointed by the PM. The PM will be in charge of working out all the details of such departments.

Executive-Wide Initiatives

Develop a decent second-rung of leadership: As we have seen in the last few terms, despite new citizens thronging into our region, we haven’t quite been able to shed our dependence on the older citizens to lead the departments/ministries. This might create a big leadership vacuum in the future once these older citizens retire/take a break. Keeping this in mind, I’ll take the initiative to ensure every Ministry develops a contingency plan in case this arises in the future. Every Ministry shall take the initiative to develop two individuals who they feel can take the Ministry’s reins in the future and ensure they are prepared to lead a Ministry by the end of their four-month tenures. They’ll be required to inform the Cabinet of the progress of these two individuals and the Prime Minister will closely monitor it as well. This will ensure we don’t have any lack of leadership when we need them the most.

Developing an engaged Executive Staff: As we have seen in the last few months, the interest in serving in the Executive has been at an all-time low, despite sufficient advertising. We need to bring a quick-fix to this as the Executive can’t survive without a disengaged and diminishing staff. For this, I plan to create some incentives for them to serve. I plan to create a points-based system where every staff will get a point earned for every task they accomplish and there will be a leadership board created and the top 3 accomplishers will be rewarded at the end of each time period, for say, one month. This will create an environment of excitement and motivate them to participate more, besides, motivating them as well. We also need to remove the perception that the Executive isn’t a better career launching pad than the Legislative Branch. The truth is that Primary executive jobs like Ministers, Secretaries, are far more prestigious jobs than Senators/MPs, and I’ll adhere to an informal rule that someone who has never worked in the Executive will not be considered for the post of a Minister. We need to create a perception that the Executive jobs make someone better-prepared for further success in the region, which actually holds true for most of the people in the region.

Transparency: Now I know, this is something that is a bare minimum for any administration that is in place. But still, I wanted to address this issue, as you should know every inch of my possible administration’s policy. Many of the times, the public is not aware of the work/programs a Ministry has been undertaking and creates a gap between the public and the administrators, which should undoubtedly be bridged. Under my watch, each ministry of the cabinet will release a dispatch detailing the works that have been done on their part in the last one month, and this allows the public to know what the Ministries, that are integral organs of the Executive, are up-to. Monthly reports will be sent out for each Ministry on the 7th of every month!

Legislative-Executive Relations: I strongly believe that if there exist any legal issues which need to be solved by amending/creating a law, the first thing that the Ministry should do is establish contact with the elected lawmakers and work on a solution to the existing problem. I am a strong proponent for legislative-executive relations, and believe both the branches should work together when we have an issue on hand that concerns both the branches, rather than one branch sidestepping the other. That being said, in the recent past, I have seen legislators voting for bills that force Executives to implement ideas that they don’t have any plan for. My message to those legislators: “If you want to ensure your executive ideas are implemented, work in the Executive. You can’t expect to sit in the Congress and change the Executive from there” If the legislators don’t hesitate to steamroll their ideas onto us, I won’t also hesitate to veto the bill if I can. There should be co-operation between both the branches. Period.

Secretariats

Secretariat of Defense
:
My stance on the alignment of our Military: I strongly believe that the military should be independent when the issue of alignment comes to fore. As a region who’s just newly experimenting with a military, which has since received much public support in the past few days, we should give the Military the flexibility to operate and choose its own alignment, and if we declare a stance early on without even experimenting, it might undo months and years of hard-work. Without experiment or taking a look first, we can’t decide what the best is for us, and what’s best for other regions might not be the best for us.

Continuing our co-operation with militaries of our allies: It’s worth noting that only a tiny percentage of the people in the region, has adequate knowledge about R/D, and given the rising interest in the military, we need to give the new participants in our military sufficient experience which can be attained only through co-operation and collaborating with allies who have had militaries for years now. The military of Thaecia is in infant stages, and we need ample experience before we can organize a large operation on our own.

Work on citizenship reforms to ensure the Military personnel don’t face problems with the citizenship:
I am going to admit, something we all know, that when the citizenship system was decided, the authors didn’t keep in mind the possible addition of a regional military, due to which the current citizenship system heavily disfavors those who serve in our regional military. Within a week of assuming office Insha’Allah, I’ll seek to sit with all the stakeholders in this issue, the Military, the Home Affairs Ministry and the Legislators, and find a solution to this significant problem by the time the midterms strike. For our military to succeed, it’s imperative we create a fair environment for them.

Secretariat of Roleplay and Worldbuilding

This secretariat won’t experience much of a change from the running tenure, except for one glaring one. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet, will not interfere in the affairs concerning this secretariat. I have however decided to add the worldbuilding aspect to the secretariat, giving it an official recognition which will help it to attract more residents while also opening up one more way to get involved in the region for those who are interested. The only change, thus, will be official recognition of the unofficial regional worldbuilding which has been going on for some time.

The Cabinet

The Ministry of Home Affairs

Increasing the proportion of manually sent recruitment telegrams
Manual recruitment not only has the advantage that it doesn’t involve the spending of IRL money, but it’s also much more effective. Manually sent recruitment telegrams are more likely to reach the newly created nations faster than the stamp and API telegrams, and thus our conversion rate will undoubtedly be higher for manual tgs and we’ll also get to recruit a higher number of nations Insha’Allah. Now, I understand the apathy of the people to participate in it. So, I’ll take a top-to-down approach, I’ll highly encouraged my appointed Ministers and Secretaries to send atleast 10-20 manual telegrams a day, and perhaps, will encourage the Congress to take up such an initiative, so once the common citizens see the top brass of the region engage themselves in these, they’ll also be encouraged to participate. And manually sent recruitment telegram is the safest choice at any time. For example, in our region, it’s safe to say 75-80% of the stamps donated to us are from Andusre, but if for some reasons, he would have to stop that for some time, imagine the decline in recruits, even though we have an API recruitment program running at the same time. So, it’s imperative we lessen our reliance on stamp telegrams and switch a little bit to manual recruitment.

Improving on the Data and Statistics Departments
I can say from my experience, the Data and Statistics Department has helped me a lot when making decisions, and most importantly, it helps in assessing the progress we as a region have made in terms of WA population growth and everything. It also helps in ensuring transparency as the citizens can now judge the performance our region in recruitment and can raise concerns based on that. I’ll absolutely continue that, and will also add more cool stuff to it, like graphs, charts, bars and many more graphics, Insha’Allah! This will help in allowing the citizens to compare the stats more easily and will help to raise their interest in checking these stuff out more.

Extending the Welcome Team’s operations to Discord
Both, Mr. Toerana and Mr. Brototh, had raised the suggestion that our welcoming new nations initiative should be expanded to Discord as well since a significant number of players make their way to our region through our server, and they might fail to receive the same level of welcome the people who join through NS, get and this is unfair for them, when they could be as valuable as the members we get through the conventional ways. It’ll function in the same way as the RMB Welcome Team does, with a set number of nations assigned to assist them through their initial stages of their life in Thaecia.

The Justice Ministry

Revamping the Bar Council Exams and the Bar itself in co-operation with the relevant authorities
Nowadays, bar council exams are just a mere formality. However, it should not be like that. We need to ensure every attorney is well-qualified and will be able to serve any client they are asked to. IRL, Bar Council Exams are usually the most competitive exams out there and a place in the council is of high prestige, but it’s not that case in Thaecia. So, the Justice Ministry will work with the relevant authorities and make the exams a lot more competitive, there will not be just some straightforward MCQs, but hypothetical case questions, to which they’ll answer what they should do and why, and many more challenging questions! That’ll also generate some much-needed interest in our judicial affairs and improve the quality of our attorneys.

A separate team to monitor the legality of any law passed, and any possible interpretational problems
At times, we see that, some very vague sections/sub-sections exist, which can be interpreted in a way most of the people or the author didn’t intend it to be, for example, the earlier clause about the reduction of the Congress. At the same time, we sometimes also notice that there are some issues with the legality of some bills which have already passed the Congress without the congressmen noticing the flaw. The Law Ministry will have a team who’ll skim through the bills and see if any legal problem might arise out of them, and search for solutions or reach out to the Court for further rulings.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Continuing with our efforts to strengthen relations with like-minded regions and the expansion of our presence on the foreign arena
In the last 7-8 months, we went from having an isolationist foreign policy to having embassies with some of the largest and most prestigious regions, so it’s safe to say it’s one sector I am highly pleased with, credit to the authorities responsible for it in the last 8 months. I’ll not seek a change in that status and will continue the efforts currently being carried out by the Foreign Ministry to boost relations with our allies, and at the same time, build relations with more regions at the same time. Isolationism is a thing of the past, and we are certainly not going to look back!

Creation of a scouting team to check for regions who have the same ideology as us and with whom, we can establish relations
NationStates has a huge number of large sized UCRs(with 150-200+ nations), and we have established regions with only a slight percentage of those regions, and it’ll be very difficult for the Foreign Minister to search and vet these regions, besides doing the bureaucratic works he/she is supposed to deal with, so a scouting team can assist him and the Foreign Affairs council, in working on this side. This idea was proposed by Tavallo, back then, I had opposed the bill because I felt and I still feel the Legislative Branch shouldn’t legalise something which can be done by the Executive without a law instead, and doesn’t force successive executives to add a department they might not have plans for, but in theory, the idea was a pretty good one, which I am looking forward to seeing in the next Foreign Affairs Ministry Insha’Allah.

The Culture Ministry

Events every three-four days, not only during special occasions!
To keep our citizens entertained, the role of the Culture Ministry is imperative. To ensure this, we need to have an all-week or all-month schedule detailing the events being planned to be undertaken so the citizens can know when they can look forward to the events and remain motivated for the whole time. And at the same time, we need to ensure every citizen are actually made aware of the events that are gonna take place, and thus proper advertising also needs to be conducted at the same time. We’ll also at the same time, have a Cultural Affairs Council, who’ll be responsible for chalking out the plans and proposing new ideas!

Cultural Exchange Tours
As you know, cultural affairs needs an influx of ideas at all times, and these might be provided by Cultural Exchange tours to other regions, by this, our sponsored citizens can travel to an assigned region and witness the cultural events that region holds and take the positives from it, and suggest it to us. At the same time, we’ll also have some cultural exchange tourists from foreign regions, which also lets them know more about Thaecia and also plays a role in making us known to more and more people!

The PMO Departments

ThaeciaU

ThaeciaU, like the Thaecian Military, has had a rocky start since its inception and like how the Military was removed at one point, many people are also asking for its suspension. But it’s an institution which is worth a final try, it might be that the ThaeciaU could face a resurgence in its fate just like the TEA Insha’Allah. I am however removing it as a Ministry, as I don’t believe, there should be a ministry to oversee one single institution (the university), the Congress will also not have to confirm an additional Minister and thus will have its time saved and also, having it as a PMO department will also allow us to have much more flexibility in handling it.

It will not be as huge and widely-targeted as it was in the first stages of the inception of the ThaeciaU. It will mainly focus on educating the newly created nations on these courses: Thaecian Laws, Foreign Affairs, Recruitment, History. The History Course will consist of a factbook, and once the factbook is read, there will be an exam taken at the end, consisting of MCQs and Short Questions. Recrutiment and Foreign Affairs courses will have a teacher-to-students interaction model, meaning the classes will be held through text messages where the teacher will provide the lesson and students will ask their questions and respond accordingly. Meanwhile, for the Thaecian Law, I’ll discuss with the Justice Ministry and decide what the best way to impart the lessons is. This will help to ensure the new nations are aware of almost 75% of the things that goes on in Thaecia and makes them capable officers in the future.

The concept of an educational institute has helped some, like Nova Anglicum, as they said they learnt a lot from the educational factbooks, so by not abolishing it, I’ll be ensuring future newcomers are provided with an institution that ensures they are up-to-date with all the things in Thaecia Insha’Allah, if this pilot run succeeds, it will play a huge role in developing our future leaders and strengthening our internal affairs.

Finishing Lines


The next few months are gonna be vital for us, it’s the last full tenure before the summer slump, so we should make sure we make the best out of it! If you liked the ideas and the roadmap I have created, make sure to support me Insha’Allah, but most importantly, make the right choice! May Allah bless you all :)

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