Opinion Piece - Why I Voted No
By Punchwood
It looks as though we are now coming near the end of the reform process. It has spanned months, created a lot of necessary and valued discussion about the future of our region and has overall had a positive effect on the region. Despite all the arguments, disagreements and sometimes tense and even on occasion divisive moments, Europeia will be stronger as a result of these discussions. However, as we reach the end of these discussions I have come to the conclusion that while these discussions have had a positive effect on our region, the final product, the Executive Split, will not. I believe such a split will lead to an even greater workforce shortage, an increase in administrative burden and will lead to potential conflicts between the two branches of the Executive.
While splitting the Executive may reduce the workload of one person, it is also likely to lead to competition and disagreements between the two branches of the Executive. Our Cabinet currently works as a team, aiming for a shared vision for the region. What will happen when we have a Chief of State who wants to go one way, and a First Minister who wants to go the other way? What if the foreign affairs branch negotiates a treaty with another region that will involve a festival, but the First Minister disagrees with opening relations with the region? The First Minister would be perfectly entitled not to plan a festival to seal the treaty as he will lead the domestic branch and thus decides what the Culture Ministry does and doesn’t do.
A First Minister who wants to become Chief of State or vice versa would have every reason to make sure the current officeholder of that office has a bad term in order to increase their own chances of winning that office. It is not inconceivable to see these branches do as little as possible to help the other. Indeed, it will likely be the aim of all administrations regardless of their ambitions to ensure that their branch does better than the other branch and it is difficult to see this as being nothing more than friendly competition. Rather, I believe it will likely result in political infighting, little cooperation and overall worse governance for the region. Look at the position of World Assembly Delegate as an example. We had two elected positions whose spheres of influence collided and there was no obvious winner, it simply led to strife and poor governance. To correct this issue we placed the WAD under the control of the President so that there was a chain of command. The result has been a far superior system to what we once had. When a Chief of State and First Minister disagree, it will not be clear who trumps whom and it’ll simply lead to worse governance and needless strife and competition.
A huge issue the region has been facing for months is the chronic understaffing of Ministries and indeed just the decreasing numbers of active players in the region. The Executive split would require us to have more active members and it would further lead to an understaffing issue. In the split Executive we will need a Chief of State, a Deputy Chief of State, a First Minister, a Deputy First Minister and all current Minister positions. We are asking the region to double the number of high-level leadership positions when one argument in favour of the split is a lack of candidates for high level leadership positions and the need to make them easier to attain. This is counterintuitive to me. We have a labour shortage and we’re proposing that we create even more jobs. It just does not make sense. Even if we do fill these roles, what is the likelihood going to be that they are all filled with active and engaged leaders?
Poor leadership from inactive and disinterested leaders is a massive drain on morale and decreases the standards that we have rightly come to expect. We aren’t going to see increased efficiency as a result of this split and the idea that we are, is simply a fantasy which has no grounding in logic.
Another major issue that a spilt Executive would lead to regarding understaffing is that it would require and lead to a far greater level of specialisation from our citizens, as we would need both Foreign and Domestic specialists. Those with leadership ambitions would have to decide which field to specialise in, meaning we would be splitting our ambitious citizens into two pools. If one of these pools were to see a dip in resources, we would have a major issue and it would badly hurt our region. We’re suffering from a shortage of skilled active participants and the spilt is simply going to make us more vulnerable to a shortage of skilled participants. Understaffing is by far the biggest issue that we face as a region at the moment and the Executive Split doesn’t actually address either of these issues instead it will actively exacerbate these issues. By increasing the number of active and engaged leaders we require and by putting us at a greater risk of a lack of skilled participants, we will be adding additional problems to this issue which will bring us no closer to solving this chronic issue of understaffing.
It’s easy to believe that major reform will benefit the region and I think many of us are supporting reform because we believe that doing something is better than nothing. This was the main reason I was supporting reform. I thought that major change would be required to bring new life to the region and that ultimately anything would be better than what we have right now. However as the process went on and we become stronger as a region under the leadership of President Sopo, I began to think more and more that reforms were a knee-jerk reaction to two very bad Presidencies that resulted in resignations. As I thought more and more about it, and what a split Executive would actually do, I realized that a split Executive will simply make our problems worse, not better. Making it harder to find qualified staff and creating additional administrative burdens isn’t going to help the region, it’s only going to make matters worse. The intentions behind the Executive Split are noble and I applaud those who spent the time to write up such proposals. However, the reality is the Executive Split is just change for change's sake. It will not bring about the positive change that we think it may and it lead to far more problems than it could ever solve.
As such I would implore you to vote against the proposed split in the Presidential Advisory poll, change your vote if you have already voted for the split and call on the President to send the final package to a real and binding referendum for the whole citizenry to vote on. We were all led to believe that it would be the citizenry who would have the final say on the reform process and yet we are being short-changed. An advisory poll means nothing, and President Sopo even admitted it isn’t binding. Europeia sets the standard for governance in NationStates and it would be a sad fall from grace if an advisory poll was considered a suitable substitute for a real and proper solution that the currently proposed “Public Voice on Reforms Amendment (2019)” represents.
The reform process started with the people in the Constitutional Convention. The reforms belong to us, they do not belong to the Senate. The reform process should end in the Constitutional Convention. The only role the Senate has is to execute the clearly defined will of the people to write and propose reform to send back to the Constitutional Convention. They can execute that will well or poorly, depending on their competence and sense of duty. They don’t have a right to execute it poorly out of expedience. It is our right to be able to have the final say through a legitimate referendum as these reforms represent the largest changes to our Constitution in years.
If the Senate will not pass the amendment to allow a referendum, then Sopo should veto the reform bill until the Senate has passed the amendment to allow a referendum, keeping with his campaign pledge for referendum. An informal poll is not a suitable substitute and is not what we were pledged would happen.
