CanterburyBoard

The Force Unity Party was seeking to finally get a majority in the House as the last election only manage to get them half of the seats with the Federalist Party in tow. The Unity ticket was composed of 5 nations with 4 running for a House seat and 2 for the position of Justice. It was composed of incumbent Representative of Force Egm, Prime Minister Caduceo and Minister of Foreign Affairs Oimatsu running for the House, Union of aryavart (before he was removed) for a seat in the High Court and Pridnestrovskaia moldavskaia for both. This ticket was highly criticized mainly by the opposition for running candidates that were said unfit for the job. Criticism was mostly headed to EGM, Aryavart and Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia. EGM’s criticism mostly came from people such as Speaker Suter and Sir Salibaic who claimed that due to her inactivity during her last term she shouldn’t be reelected. This was due to the fact she hadn’t voted for any legislation in the past 2 months, was absent for 3 debates in a row and was rarely talking to her citizens. Caduceo, the FUP leader, answered that it was mostly due to her being away for most of that time. The answer coming back from the Federalists was that she gave notice to the House well after it started, meaning she was still considered absent for a long period of time. In the case of Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia, it was largely because he had been impeached by the citizens from his last Justice term due to laziness and lack of respect for this office. During his debate, he stated that it was not true during and that his impeachment was more politically driven than anything. Finally, Union of Aryavart was the one who suffered the harshest criticism of all. He was involved in a big controversy after screenshots of him denying some parts of the Holocaust were released by the opposition. The FUP then immediately kicked him out and he was nowhere to be found on the party’s ads later on. Moderators started debating on whether to ban him because of this, the final verdict was that they would let him go as this was an isolated case and he only said something like this once. Some people were also kind of reluctant to see the Prime Minister enter the House but it was not illegal and it was up to the citizens to decide of his faith.

The Federalist ticket on the other hand was much safer. It consisted of electing Atharia, also known as Trisword, for the House while re-electing incumbent Chief Justice Tigslarlowducken. Atharia had already served a previous term as a Force Representative from October 2019 to January 2020. He hadn’t been the most active of his time but had done what was required of him such as voting and debating. Tigslarlowducken was another safe bet as he had been by far the best Justice of the last term and was the most experienced due to many other previous terms. After Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia was impeached from his office of Justice, Tigslarlowducken had been the only one left in the High Court that hadn’t been appointed by the Founder.

On September 11th, results were finally released but they had a bittersweet end to it. This election brought only brought 37% of what the last General Election had in terms of voters. In fact, only 14 nations went up to the poll and this was in part due to an inactivity wave hitting the region at the same time as the ballots opened.

In the case of the Unity ticket, both Prime Minister Caduceo and Minister Oimatsu easily gained their seats with an approval rating of 66.7% and 87.5% respectively. Even though he tried making his case as to why his impeachment was wrong, Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia failed to obtain the trust of the voters and got a mear 25% of the votes in favor of him for both the House and Justice race. Ex-FUP candidate Union of Aaryavart surprised many by winning his office with a 66.7% approval rating. Most people abstained while asked to vote for him which caused this unexpected result. In fact, abstentions were plaguing this election and it showed us how badly campaigning and getting to know your candidate currently works in the region. In the 8 ballots that citizens could vote, there was an astounding average of 3.5 abstentions for each one. There were even some ballots filled with only abstentions! EGM was also elected with a respectable 70% of votes in her favor.

The Federalist ticket was really popular amongst voters with both Atharia and Tigslarlowducken gaining the biggest approval rating in their race. Atharia came back to the House following his win with an approval of 88.9% of the voters while Tigslarlowducken had almost no problem getting elected with 90% of voters putting their trust in him.

Since there was a need to fill the third and last Justice seats, Sumeka was appointed to the office.

It had been already 4 months and so it was time for the democratic process known as elections to start again. A poll was released in the region to know who were the nations that wanted to race for the office of President. In a surprising twist, the office was very popular as 6 candidates applied their candidacy. Suter would have to run against Khokha, Baalihanaka, New kolia, Namalaka and Colmaijo.

Voting for the Presidential election wasn’t the only thing that would be held. A referendum to decide who between Southern xenick and incumbent Minister of Roleplay Betelgeuse alliance was also on the menu. Both of them were seeking to take the head of the roleplay and it was agreed that a referendum would be held in which citizens could vote for whom they prefer. But, since there is no Minister of Roleplay Election in the Constitution of RGBN, the final choice would still be in the hands of the next President.

There wasn’t a lot of campaigning done for the election but Suter, Calmaijo and Southern xenick still did some short speeches.

The results took a long time to come and were delayed to the 31st of September when Shenifar finally released the voting results. With no surprise, Suter won the election with a landslide and 71% of the population giving him their approval. Colmaijo came second and the 4 other candidates didn’t even receive 1 vote. Betelgeuse Alliance also won the Minister of Roleplay referendum with 100% of the votes if you don't count abstentions. Problem is, results were contested as Southern xenick received no votes despite the claims of Krovx Belgium and Southern xenick himself claimed that they did. Results were checked once again and nothing seemed wrong, the most accepted theory, for now, is that they just accidentally voted for the wrong person without knowing. But if we follow their statements, Betelgeuse Alliance still won the election but with only 60% of the votes this time.

The problem was that the High Commission, the government body in charge of the territories, considered this a breach into their another authority's business and on the last day of August, High Commissioner Sir Salibaic filed a case against the Minister of Internal Affairs, United nations of colombia, because he was the one who accepted the project.

The case was rapidly recognized two hours later and the ministry of Internal Affairs was asked to stop any of its activities concerning territorial matters. The trial was set to start on the same day at 7 PM Eastern Time but due to complaints made by Minister of Communications Azerubia on the matter and a formal request by the plaintiff, it was pushed back to the 4th of September at the same time. While people waited, Chief Justice Tigslarlowducken had appointed Atharia, New Legland and Qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm 1234567890- to jury duty.

Before the trial was to start, Sir Salibaic stated that he tried to get to an agreement to drop the charges if the ministry removed territorial powers from the WA Committee and delete the Union Stature Committee completely but he received a complete refusal from the defendant.

Sir Salibaic’s main accusations were also that the Minister of Internal Affairs had passed over what the High Court ruled on their power over Territories making their actions completely illegal in the eye of the law. He said that helping the territories communicate with the Capital had always been the High Commission's job and that they shouldn’t interfere in it.

Against him, UNC claimed that his ministry had been focusing on helping territories communicate with the Capital which was definitely not illegal and that the High Commission's job was to intervene into the territories to help them.

On the next day, the jury had ruled unanimously in favor of the High Commission and UNC saw his right to vote and run for a public office be removed for a 6 months time period. The Union Stature Committee was also officially disbanded and the WA Committee saw its territorial tasks be removed.

Everything can be traced back to the 20th of June when Suter was elected President of the region with a program promoting activity and the rebuilding of the region. Even though some efforts were made to generate activity (frequent polls, talking on the RMB) the region did not seem to head into a new dawn and Suter’s presidential promises seemed impossible to accomplish anymore.

What truly saved the region was its roleplay. The RMB roleplay had always been a big part of the old RGBN and so one of Suter’s promises was to bring it back. He did in fact do it, but no one was interested to partake in it at first. The future of the regional roleplay seemed very dark until some newcomers changed the tide. On the 21st of August, a nation called Southern xenick joined the ranks of the region and started roleplaying. Slowly but surely, more and more nations joined it and within days from his arrival, messages on the Regional Message Board could go up to more than 100 each day. Obviously, he wasn't the only one to thank, nations like Krovx Belgium, Plaugetopia and Suter were also roleplaying daily and helped increase the activity of their state.

With that, a new unique community was starting to develop and with that, a new identity for the region was to be created. It was to be represented with a brand new flag. The President decided after citizens agreed that they wanted something new to represent them and that the current one at the time was too similar to the Force one.

A new Constitution was also on its way for the rebirthed region. This new Constitution’s main focus would be to finally introduce a legislative body controlled by the citizens. This was one of Suter’s presidential promises and he decided to opt for one in which all citizens could register to partake in, similar to what we see in the Pacifics. It should soon be out since the only thing left to do is to correct the typos and have State Overseer Shenifar approve it.

On the surface, this seems fine but if you take a look a little closer you will notice a problem with this. The lack of votes cast in this Midterm was a complete and utter blow to democracy within the region. Now it is to be expected that voter turnout would drop partly due to it being a midterm rather than a general election but with the July general election gaining a total 37 votes compared to the 14 votes cast in the court election and the 12 votes cast in the House voting, it is appalling we let this happen.

The problem with this is that voter turnout is a good marker to base how active the Union is and how politically engage our citizens are. This low turnout shows a sudden drop in political activity and democratic participation within our Union and especially the drop inside the capital is telling. This can only be described as a disaster as this voter turnout is lower than the total membership of all active political parties in the entire Union combined. This is a show of failure upon both political parties, candidates, and the government itself failing to get citizens to go vote.

This has to change and there should be no doubt about it. But what can we do? Well, the first thing is those who are reading this and are citizens of the Union go vote and actively take part in the political field so that you can have someone that represents you. The second thing is, we must increase knowledge of how to vote and ensure that people go vote. This is a task that must be completed by the government and it must be done now before it is too late. Our government and political leaders must be held accountable for this and to save face, we must ensure they act now. This has to not just come from our House of Representatives but our executive as well. The executive is the most to blame as the lack of voters this election proves our second inactivity crisis which has been worsened by ineffective governance and failure to act upon this crisis.

This article will advocate that this government introduce a voter information scheme to provide public information to all citizens on how to vote and when to vote. For as I have said, if we do not act now we will doom our democracy. This article will also send a stark warning to all political parties, engage with our citizens or else face the consequences of a return to one-party rule. This will especially apply to opposition parties. Finally, this article will demand that candidates engage and demand that those who are elected to the House, speak to their constituents and make sure their voice is heard.

The Force Unity Party was seeking to finally get a majority in the House as the last election only manage to get them half of the seats with the Federalist Party in tow. The Unity ticket was composed of 5 nations with 4 running for a House seat and 2 for the position of Justice. It was composed of incumbent Representative of Force Egm, Prime Minister Caduceo and Minister of Foreign Affairs Oimatsu running for the House, Union of aryavart (before he was removed) for a seat in the High Court and Pridnestrovskaia moldavskaia for both. This ticket was highly criticized mainly by the opposition for running candidates that were said unfit for the job. Criticism was mostly headed to EGM, Aryavart and Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia. EGM’s criticism mostly came from people such as Speaker Suter and Sir Salibaic who claimed that due to her inactivity during her last term she shouldn’t be reelected. This was due to the fact she hadn’t voted for any legislation in the past 2 months, was absent for 3 debates in a row and was rarely talking to her citizens. Caduceo, the FUP leader, answered that it was mostly due to her being away for most of that time. The answer coming back from the Federalists was that she gave notice to the House well after it started, meaning she was still considered absent for a long period of time. In the case of Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia, it was largely because he had been impeached by the citizens from his last Justice term due to laziness and lack of respect for this office. During his debate, he stated that it was not true during and that his impeachment was more politically driven than anything. Finally, Union of Aryavart was the one who suffered the harshest criticism of all. He was involved in a big controversy after screenshots of him denying some parts of the Holocaust were released by the opposition. The FUP then immediately kicked him out and he was nowhere to be found on the party’s ads later on. Moderators started debating on whether to ban him because of this, the final verdict was that they would let him go as this was an isolated case and he only said something like this once. Some people were also kind of reluctant to see the Prime Minister enter the House but it was not illegal and it was up to the citizens to decide of his faith.

The Federalist ticket on the other hand was much safer. It consisted of electing Atharia, also known as Trisword, for the House while re-electing incumbent Chief Justice Tigslarlowducken. Atharia had already served a previous term as a Force Representative from October 2019 to January 2020. He hadn’t been the most active of his time but had done what was required of him such as voting and debating. Tigslarlowducken was another safe bet as he had been by far the best Justice of the last term and was the most experienced due to many other previous terms. After Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia was impeached from his office of Justice, Tigslarlowducken had been the only one left in the High Court that hadn’t been appointed by the Founder.

On September 11th, results were finally released but they had a bittersweet end to it. This election brought only brought 37% of what the last General Election had in terms of voters. In fact, only 14 nations went up to the poll and this was in part due to an inactivity wave hitting the region at the same time as the ballots opened.

In the case of the Unity ticket, both Prime Minister Caduceo and Minister Oimatsu easily gained their seats with an approval rating of 66.7% and 87.5% respectively. Even though he tried making his case as to why his impeachment was wrong, Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia failed to obtain the trust of the voters and got a mear 25% of the votes in favor of him for both the House and Justice race. Ex-FUP candidate Union of Aaryavart surprised many by winning his office with a 66.7% approval rating. Most people abstained while asked to vote for him which caused this unexpected result. In fact, abstentions were plaguing this election and it showed us how badly campaigning and getting to know your candidate currently works in the region. In the 8 ballots that citizens could vote, there was an astounding average of 3.5 abstentions for each one. There were even some ballots filled with only abstentions! EGM was also elected with a respectable 70% of votes in her favor.

The Federalist ticket was really popular amongst voters with both Atharia and Tigslarlowducken gaining the biggest approval rating in their race. Atharia came back to the House following his win with an approval of 88.9% of the voters while Tigslarlowducken had almost no problem getting elected with 90% of voters putting their trust in him.

Since there was a need to fill the third and last Justice seats, Sumeka was appointed to the office.

It had been already 4 months and so it was time for the democratic process known as elections to start again. A poll was released in the region to know who were the nations that wanted to race for the office of President. In a surprising twist, the office was very popular as 6 candidates applied their candidacy. Suter would have to run against Khokha, Baalihanaka, New kolia, Namalaka and Colmaijo.

Voting for the Presidential election wasn’t the only thing that would be held. A referendum to decide who between Southern xenick and incumbent Minister of Roleplay Betelgeuse alliance was also on the menu. Both of them were seeking to take the head of the roleplay and it was agreed that a referendum would be held in which citizens could vote for whom they prefer. But, since there is no Minister of Roleplay Election in the Constitution of RGBN, the final choice would still be in the hands of the next President.

There wasn’t a lot of campaigning done for the election but Suter, Calmaijo and Southern xenick still did some short speeches.

The results took a long time to come and were delayed to the 31st of September when Shenifar finally released the voting results. With no surprise, Suter won the election with a landslide and 71% of the population giving him their approval. Colmaijo came second and the 4 other candidates didn’t even receive 1 vote. Betelgeuse Alliance also won the Minister of Roleplay referendum with 100% of the votes if you don't count abstentions. Problem is, results were contested as Southern xenick received no votes despite the claims of Krovx Belgium and Southern xenick himself claimed that they did. Results were checked once again and nothing seemed wrong, the most accepted theory, for now, is that they just accidentally voted for the wrong person without knowing. But if we follow their statements, Betelgeuse Alliance still won the election but with only 60% of the votes this time.

The problem was that the High Commission, the government body in charge of the territories, considered this a breach into their another authority's business and on the last day of August, High Commissioner Sir Salibaic filed a case against the Minister of Internal Affairs, United nations of colombia, because he was the one who accepted the project.

The case was rapidly recognized two hours later and the ministry of Internal Affairs was asked to stop any of its activities concerning territorial matters. The trial was set to start on the same day at 7 PM Eastern Time but due to complaints made by Minister of Communications Azerubia on the matter and a formal request by the plaintiff, it was pushed back to the 4th of September at the same time. While people waited, Chief Justice Tigslarlowducken had appointed Atharia, New Legland and Qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm 1234567890- to jury duty.

Before the trial was to start, Sir Salibaic stated that he tried to get to an agreement to drop the charges if the ministry removed territorial powers from the WA Committee and delete the Union Stature Committee completely but he received a complete refusal from the defendant.

Sir Salibaic’s main accusations were also that the Minister of Internal Affairs had passed over what the High Court ruled on their power over Territories making their actions completely illegal in the eye of the law. He said that helping the territories communicate with the Capital had always been the High Commission's job and that they shouldn’t interfere in it.

Against him, UNC claimed that his ministry had been focusing on helping territories communicate with the Capital which was definitely not illegal and that the High Commission's job was to intervene into the territories to help them.

On the next day, the jury had ruled unanimously in favor of the High Commission and UNC saw his right to vote and run for a public office be removed for a 6 months time period. The Union Stature Committee was also officially disbanded and the WA Committee saw its territorial tasks be removed.

Everything can be traced back to the 20th of June when Suter was elected President of the region with a program promoting activity and the rebuilding of the region. Even though some efforts were made to generate activity (frequent polls, talking on the RMB) the region did not seem to head into a new dawn and Suter’s presidential promises seemed impossible to accomplish anymore.

What truly saved the region was its roleplay. The RMB roleplay had always been a big part of the old RGBN and so one of Suter’s promises was to bring it back. He did in fact do it, but no one was interested to partake in it at first. The future of the regional roleplay seemed very dark until some newcomers changed the tide. On the 21st of August, a nation called Southern xenick joined the ranks of the region and started roleplaying. Slowly but surely, more and more nations joined it and within days from his arrival, messages on the Regional Message Board could go up to more than 100 each day. Obviously, he wasn't the only one to thank, nations like Krovx Belgium, Plaugetopia and Suter were also roleplaying daily and helped increase the activity of their state.

With that, a new unique community was starting to develop and with that, a new identity for the region was to be created. It was to be represented with a brand new flag. The President decided after citizens agreed that they wanted something new to represent them and that the current one at the time was too similar to the Force one.

A new Constitution was also on its way for the rebirthed region. This new Constitution’s main focus would be to finally introduce a legislative body controlled by the citizens. This was one of Suter’s presidential promises and he decided to opt for one in which all citizens could register to partake in, similar to what we see in the Pacifics. It should soon be out since the only thing left to do is to correct the typos and have State Overseer Shenifar approve it.

On the surface, this seems fine but if you take a look a little closer you will notice a problem with this. The lack of votes cast in this Midterm was a complete and utter blow to democracy within the region. Now it is to be expected that voter turnout would drop partly due to it being a midterm rather than a general election but with the July general election gaining a total 37 votes compared to the 14 votes cast in the court election and the 12 votes cast in the House voting, it is appalling we let this happen.

The problem with this is that voter turnout is a good marker to base how active the Union is and how politically engage our citizens are. This low turnout shows a sudden drop in political activity and democratic participation within our Union and especially the drop inside the capital is telling. This can only be described as a disaster as this voter turnout is lower than the total membership of all active political parties in the entire Union combined. This is a show of failure upon both political parties, candidates, and the government itself failing to get citizens to go vote.

This has to change and there should be no doubt about it. But what can we do? Well, the first thing is those who are reading this and are citizens of the Union go vote and actively take part in the political field so that you can have someone that represents you. The second thing is, we must increase knowledge of how to vote and ensure that people go vote. This is a task that must be completed by the government and it must be done now before it is too late. Our government and political leaders must be held accountable for this and to save face, we must ensure they act now. This has to not just come from our House of Representatives but our executive as well. The executive is the most to blame as the lack of voters this election proves our second inactivity crisis which has been worsened by ineffective governance and failure to act upon this crisis.

This article will advocate that this government introduce a voter information scheme to provide public information to all citizens on how to vote and when to vote. For as I have said, if we do not act now we will doom our democracy. This article will also send a stark warning to all political parties, engage with our citizens or else face the consequences of a return to one-party rule. This will especially apply to opposition parties. Finally, this article will demand that candidates engage and demand that those who are elected to the House, speak to their constituents and make sure their voice is heard.