Opinion: Effects of Executive Level Resignations on Europeia
An Analysis of Our Regions Executive Government Turnover Rate Over the Past Year
Written by Vac
Continuity. We as Europeians pride ourselves on this. The continuance of government, something that every government strives for. You see it to the extreme in the United States government with the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars spent on squirreling away redundancies of files, hiding a secretary during the State of the Union address, and the millions spent on bunkers for government officials to hide during times of war on the homefront. Admittedly we don’t see this level of preparedness anywhere on NationStates due to the lack of necessity. Most governments on NationStates miss this mark, and sink into the rough waves of nothingness, a footnote in history. Europeia, however, obviously has not experienced these misfortunes with over a decade of continuous governance, never being infected by the virus of inactivity that infects to many regions. Part of what has ensured this has been having a lower than usual turnover rate in our executive, and that is a huge part of a region’s success. The stability of knowing that a government in place won’t fall apart or undergo significant change in staffing, and without undergoing radical changes in direction of policy without warning. Here in Europeia we are seeing the first of the two start to take shape.
Over the course of recent Europeian history, we have seen a significant lack of stability in our executive branch. Since July of 2016 we have had seven Presidents, three of which have resigned, Trinnien, Calvin, and our most recent one, Cat. Our government has been rocked by significant scandal, with both Cat and Trinnien showing a lack of discrepancy in who shares classified information with whom. Below the President are nine members of his or her cabinet. That brings us to a theoretical total of sixty three members of cabinet if we are to assume everyone were to serve their full seventy day term. However, an investigation done by Aexnideral Seymour revealed that there have been a total fifteen cabinet resignations since July of two thousand and sixteen, a 24% turnover rate! With several cabinet ministers being especially susceptible to resignation, World Assembly(WA) Ministers, Attorney General’s, and our Radio Ministers, with three of each resigning over the course of our sample. Do note that I am not counting the current Writing Legend Presidency due to the fact that it is still going on.
Now what does all of that mean? What am I driving at? Yet another investigation by Aex has revealed that since the Presidential election in April of this year, we have seen what is frankly a severe downtick in voter turnout. In April there were ninety votes cast, in July there were eighty five votes cast, and finally in September there was an abysmal fifty nine votes cast.
What this shows, in my opinion, is that our lack of stability in the government of our region over the last seven governments, has started to promote an atmosphere of apathy among voters. While we are admittedly in the beginning stages of this unfortunate development, we are no doubt beginning the process, as noted by Aexnideral Seymour during his most recent appearance on EBC Radio. This is a trend that has to be halted, and fast before the strangleholds of voter apathy begin to start having severe negative effects on the region. While sudden changes in a government members real life are out of any of our control, recently there have been situations resulting in government instability, no matter how temporary, that are well within the realm of NationStates. With both Cat and Trinnien showing a lack of discrepancy in who gets what information, particularly outside of the borders of Europeia and with people who either did, or possibly meant ill intent for the region. I however believe in the people of Europeia to right the course before it gets past the point of no return.
