EBC Special: Many hands make light work.




Many hands make light work
Special Edition on the Executive Split

Written by Winged Bear









Tom Hanks once said that “a hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.” If this is accurate, Europeia is staunchly heroic. On February 4th, President Sopo signed the Executive Split Omnibus Bill (2019) into law, arguably one of Europeia’s most ambitious leaps in the dark since King HEM’s abdication over a decade ago. The bill seeks to abolish the Presidency and part its powers in two distinct branches of the Executive.

The bill vests all Foreign policy powers previously granted to the President in a Chief of State, assisted by a Deputy Chief of State and a Council of State, while conferring all domestic powers to a First Minister, assisted by a deputy First Minister and a Cabinet of Ministers. Both the Chief of State and the First Minister get to appoint two of the four justices of the High Court. These justices will elect a Chief Justice among their ranks, as they already do. The Attorney General and Discord moderators will be jointly appointed.

The First Minister and the Deputy First Minister will be elected on a joint ticket through Universal suffrage for a 60-day term, while the Chief of State and the Deputy Chief of State will be elected on a joint ticket by the Senate for a 90-day term.


An infographic diagram of what the current executive looks like.

The idea of a split executive was first placed under the spotlight at the Constitutional Convention on June 25th, 2018. Splitting the executive was proposed by erstwhile newly honoured citizen and several times former President Sopo who, “thought the presidency shouldered too much responsibility and work, and the executive split was a way to address it, creating two positions that would be more accessible for most of our citizens.”

This was just before the summer of 2018, a period so exceptionally inactive that it has been described by Forum Administrator Darcness as “an outlier, a perfect storm of circumstances.” Perhaps this inactive summer that happened to prove Sopo’s point is what motivated the Convention to proceed. Maybe the desperate search for a solution to what had become a perceived problem. As Senator Prim confided: “The President was taking flak for the failings of the poorly-staffed and overworked ministries. It was an untenable situation”. Or conceivably a general enthusiasm for reforms, with Speaker HEM admitting “I've always been in favour of the executive split, though originally I wanted it to be paired with more dramatic legislature reform”. Whatever the reason, the Executive Split became the first and only resolution passed by the Constitutional convention, with 9 votes Aye, 3 Nays and no Abstains.



At the time, the region believed reform would come all at once, with a brand-new constitution. So when Senator Pierce first sponsored an executive split proposal in the Senate in early September, the discussion was promptly tabled. In preference, Senator HEM posted plans for a Second Republic, complete with a “Concord” to replace our current Constitution.

Yet despite bold efforts by Senators, HEM’s for a Second Republic never made it past first reading, according to him because “The Concord was pulling people in a lot of different directions. Some people liked a, or b aspects but didn't like c. There was a lot going on, and it was tough to find consensus”.


Even a group of six Senators elected or reelected in the closing hours of 2018 in a particularly competitive election with nine candidates could not possibly carry out reform as a large package. In fact, the new Senate may have originally been a cause for late reforms, with Senator Prim saying “When we came back, the Senate wasn't explicitly pro-reform and it showed. We stalled out.”


The following Lazarus Plan did not see more progress, halted by concerns on many fronts. Senator Kari, one of the major architects of the Lazarus Plan, deplores “Any such package would have always had some parts which would not be approved off by elements of the region and as such those singular elements would result in the whole package being opposed by them as a result, or attempts to remove those parts and change the package to something more palatable to them rather than an effective or interesting dynamic.” The Lazarus Plan was definitively tabled in late January.




Instead, Senator Kari had since early January pushed for the passing of a separate Executive Split bill. She explains that “The Executive Split as a singular bill did not have these issues and most of the concerns that have been raised over it have been superficial things such as the names of the new positions. It as a concept had also ostensibly been supported by pretty much the entire region previously.” However, some more obstacles were to be overcome. On January 13th, Senator HEM moved to remove Senate Speaker JayDee, stating “This lack of confidence surrounding and consuming the Speaker's office has effectively stone-walled our progress, even as individual Senators work hard to forge consensus.” JayDee responded on the very day by resigning from both the Speakership and the Senate, triggering a Senate by-election.


By then it had become urgent to accomplish the reforms. The toxicity of the reform process is something on which all sides can agree. Leading moderate voice Olde Delaware comments that “Euro has always been talked highly of for our love of community and this issue brought out the worst in both sides of our community.” Meanwhile, Senator Kari describes the atmosphere of the reform debate as getting “extremely toxic and heated, to the point where I'm not sure how much longer the region could have coped with it.” All interviewees asked about the most difficult aspect of the reform process have answered that the divisive rhetoric was a main thorn in the region’s side as it was advancing through deep change and introspection.



This is when Aexnidaral Seymour, one of the leading proponents of the reform process, chose to run on a campaign titled “Put up or shut up”, effectively focused purely on passing the executive split. The Senator and WA-Delegate explains “I had considered running again after my last term for another full term but decided against it because I was happy with the field of candidates […] Once JayDee resigned, I waffled back and forth between running and ultimately decided I should run since there were no anti-reform candidates, I didn't have to worry about splitting the vote and accidentally electing someone contrary to my cause.”Aexnidaral won the by-election against returning Honoured Citizen Vinage Vinage and newcomer Lloenflys.

Barely a week after the by-election the Senate’s membership changed again, as first-time Senator Luna Nation resigned from their Senate seat after a recall procedure was started for inactivity. Another by-election took place opposing outgoing Assembly Chair and Minister for Culture Bowzin to newcomer Lloenflys, who explains he ran because “early in this term the Senate seemed really mired in the muck for awhile and that’s what I thought I could help avoid. So my vision of the split itself was fairly generic - I was in favor, but anticipated framing out more complete views on issues as the debate developed.” Lloenflys won the seat after a runoff, completing the Senate’s membership. Senator Aexnidaral describes the last few days of legislating as “HEM, myself, Kari, and Prim huddled together talking back-and-forth with Drecq on how to word various things and make them palatable to the Ministry of Justice.”, while Senator Lloenflys claims that “work on the reform was completed before I was in place”. It can hence be deduced a sizeable portion of work was undertaken in a narrow timeframe. Senator Prim confirms that, disclosing that “the reform bill was able to be written up and resolved within about a week and a half” once negotiations were over and consensus was reached.

Meanwhile, in the Citizens’ Assembly, a constitutional amendment draft appeared demanding that the People’s Assent be given by referendum to the Executive Split. Citing President Sopo's campaign promise to do so, rather than the simple Presidential signature the Constitution mandated for constitutional amendments. There was much debate and controversy after Speaker HEM assured that “the Senate's agenda will not be suspended for this legislation,”. The question never got the chance to animate Senate debate though, as the proposal was defeated at vote in the Assembly. This defeat ensured there would be no formal referendum on the final reform package.

However, this opened the door to the final wave of controversy in the splitting process. President Sopo opened a poll on February 1st, a day before the bill landed on his office for assent. Not everyone was satisfied with the unofficial poll. The Minister of Communications Punchwood stated “An informal poll is not a suitable substitute and is not what we were pledged would happen” in an op-ed titled “Why I voted No”, criticising the way the split bill was handled by the Senate and Presidency. This provoked some debate over whether the Minister of Communications should use the EBC to diffuse their opinions, and whether Minister could feasibly retain his position in Sopo's government, and led to a satirical response article by Senator Aexnidaral dubbed "Why I voted yes" in their own newspaper: Aex's Grumps. Nevertheless, these articles did not affect the results of the unofficial poll: at its closure on February 3rd, 71.4% of voters consented to the split.

The following day, President Sopo pasted his signature on the Executive Split Omnibus Bill (2019), putting an end to a strenuous process to reform the Republic’s executive.


In the present climate, the future of the region is a mystery that many have described as exciting. Supreme Chancellor Lethen formally opened Presidential standing with a speech dubbed “What comes after the winds of change?” A question many may now have. Europeia has elected Kuramia as President, and she is due to become Chief of State as soon as a First Minister is elected. First Minister elections were called on February 19th , and should take place on Friday March 1st .
As soon as a First Minister is elected, the sitting President shall become Chief of State. But they will not be the first incumbent to the position of Chief of State: Hyanygo, HEM and Rotalsia have governed under this title before.

The new government will have to face some significant challenges. According to Olde Delaware, those will be logistical, with him stating that “if this is going to work we need to start from the bottom which is getting the junior ministers roster back up and start training the future Prime Minister/First Ministers” Across the aisle, Senator Kari states that “We still have the massive issues of integration and participation to address effectively”, adding that “As a region Euro is very fond of saying "real life comes first" but when multiple Presidents cite that their position in the region has throw real life off balance, it needed to be addressed.” In the Office of the Attorney general, the Venerable Drecq adds that the review of the package “will certainly be a fair sized project and the next Attorney General's workload will be larger due to it, but the day to day workload of the Ministry of Justices is fairly small so it shouldn't be an issue.” The peak of the reform may be passed, but there are still challenges for future Europeian governments to overcome.


What has Europeia assimilated from those reforms? Over seven months of debating and bickering, Europeia has accomplished something. As President Sopo concedes, “I honestly thought the executive split would get shut down quickly. Historically our region has been opposed to major changes like that. As the year went on, though, it became more appealing because of the region's struggles. I think our region, and this game are very different than they were a few years ago. Much more social.” before declaring that “This process was hard, and we didn't get the sweeping reform that some folks wanted nor the very gradual change others advocated. But we got something big, and I feel like it was worth it.” Concurrently, Senator Aexnidaral answers “I hope that we all learned that we could use a lesson in humility and friendship. At the end of the day, our goal should be to work together to make the Region stronger than it was the day before […] The best way to make things better for Europeia is to work to build things together and not tear them apart.” Perhaps Europeia has learnt lessons of listening and compromise through a process that no interviewee qualified as laid back or constructive.


All interviewees have agreed the reform process could have been shorter, with Attorney General Drecq reminding that “The primary issue which forces time in these situations is the political factor of agreeing on what to change and what to keep. The actual legislating can be done within a relatively short time”. Other think the divisions have played a role in the lengthening of the process, such as Olde Delaware who sighs: “I believe had the main people behind reform reached out to the moderates rather than plant their flag and refuse to move, the entire process wouldn't have been as bloody and would have went much faster”.



An upbeat lesson we can draw from this is that, however hard some processes may be, diligent work and determination will lead to a viable outcome. According to a Grand Hall poll, 78.8% of citizens believe the Executive split is either likely or very likely to last for more than a year. What will indeed happen? Only time will tell.


Acknowledgements to President Sopo, Senators Kari, Prim, Aexnidaral Seymour, and Lloenflys, Speaker HEM, Attorney General Drecq, and moderate leading voice Olde Delaware for accepting to be interviewed and taking the time to write fleshed out responses.
 
Wonderful article and great work. Thank you, Grizzli, and all interviewees.
 
Wonderful stuff Winged Bear - I think the info graphic in itself worthy of a good clap. Nice to review the whole picture, where we came from and where we have ended up.
 
A lot of work and love went into this article from everyone! Thank you for a great glimpse in the back end of reform! Grizzli, as we all still insist on calling you fantastic reporting!
 
This is a great article and the kind of content I expect from the EBC
 
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