On Tuesday, a poll was created by the EBC, then posted in the Grand Hall. The discussion that ensued was one of the most vigorous and involved discussions that this reporter has seen. What was this topic that generated so much attention and controversy? Did HEM go out in public wearing his jean shorts? Did Kraketopia lay waste to a nearby town? Yes, to both of these questions. However, these topics are not what this article will be discussing. Political parties are all the rage as of late, and the EBC, the trendy newspaper that it is, wants in.
Before we get to the results of this poll, let's talk about the current political parties that we have in a little detail. There are two parties in Europeia: the Europeian Action Action Coalition (formerly the Loaded Baked Potato Party) headed by World Assembly Delegate and all-around small rodent, Mousebumples, and the Democratic Action Front, led by Senator and all-around Zenny, Zenny Anumia.
The first party to discuss is the EAAC (formerly the LBPP), which was formed in early March of this year. This party is mostly comprised of experienced Europeians. In fact, they only have one or two newcomers in their entire party. The party's goals, as spelled out in its platform (just recently released), are Accessibility of the forum, Engagement of those gameside, Integration of the Cabinets, Outreach into gameside, and Understanding of newcomers. This party has endorsed Mousebumples for WA Delegate (it should be noted the DAF also did this) and Kraketopia for President, with both of these candidates winning their elections.
The other party in Europeia is the DAF, which began in late June of this year. This party is mostly comprised of newcomers, with only four or five more experienced Europeians in its membership roster. The party stands for the advancement of newcomers, a strong and independent republican navy, democracy, liberty, and transparency. This party has endorsed Mousebumples for WA Delegate (as did the EAAC), Imperium, Zenny, and Modernsin for Senate, and Ogastein for President, with Ogastein being the only candidate to not win his election.
As you may have noticed, the goals of these two parties are not really at odds with each other. Sure, one may be more focused on gameside, while the other is more focused on democracy and transparency, but there is no real reason you can't have both. In fact, these parties have rarely fought over political issues, at least officially, as they only have endorsed opposing candidates in the same race once. Even then, neither candidate listed their party affiliation at the ballot box, with both choosing to run as independents. In fact, the only recent candidate to list a partisan affiliation at the ballot box was Zenny Anumia herself, when she successfully ran for Senate back in June.
Although certain Europeians might not care to admit it, many of those involved in the higher levels of our government are currently members of a political party. In fact, here are the numbers of unaffiliated vs. affiliated members of government since the re-birth of political parties, which was the creation of the LBPP, in early March. 43 have been unaffiliated, which is 58% of the positions, (32 served the whole term and 11 served a partial term) vs. 31 who have been affiliated, which is 42% of the positions (26 had a whole term and 5 had a partial term). In total, there have been 74 positions (58 whole term/16 partial).
23 of those were held by LBPP, which is 31% of the total (21 whole term, 2 partial), vs 8 held by DAF, which is 11% of total (5 whole term, 3 partial).
In our current government, we have 12 unaffiliated, which is 52% of the total, vs 11 affiliated, which is 48%, out of a total 23 positions (this is all the number of positions, not the number of different individuals, as some of these are held by the same person). For the party breakdown, that's 5 LBPP, 22% of the total, vs 6 DAF, 26% of the total.
As far as unique individuals go, (since affiliation changes, we will go by the most recent affiliation for them to hold a position with) since party rebirth: 19 unaffiliated, 61% of the total, vs 12 affiliated, 39% of all individuals, with the total being 31 unique individuals. Of the 12 party members, 7 of them were LBPP, 23% of the total, vs 5 who were DAF, 16% of the total.
Currently, we have 10 unaffiliated, 53% of the total, vs 9 affiliated, 47% of the total, out of 19 individuals. For the party breakdown, that includes 4 LBPP, 21% of the total, vs 5 DAF, 26% of the total. WAD, Justices, CA Chairman, President, Vice-President, Senators, and Ministers were all included.
Here are some other things to note, not included in the data. Zenny's more recent Senate run is the only time any candidate has run under of these two party's banners. All five DAF members that have ever held office currently hold office. The DAF has more current members then the LBPP has ever had at one time. The DAF has only had members in Senate or Ministry positions, while the LBPP has had members in all of the positions covered.
Despite the LBPP holding the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, no Ministers are from that party, but three are from the DAF. With exception of current terms, since the creation of the LBPP, in all positions, unaffiliated vastly outnumbered affiliated every term, and maintain a majority, although the gap has been significantly closed since the creation of the DAF. The ratio of partial terms to whole terms is much higher for unaffiliated than affiliated, but the highest ratio comes from the DAF who have three partial terms to five whole terms (the party is still young, however, so this may change).
Now that we know just how influential our political parties' members have been, let's take a look at the results of our poll, which asked seventeen questions about our two parties currently in Europeia. This poll was open from Tuesday night to Saturday morning, and had twenty-eight responses.
The first question asked "Are you a member of a Europeian political party?"
This shows that our poll had 43% DAF, 29% LBPP/Euro AAC, and 29% belonging to no political party.
The next question asked "What is your opinion of Europeian political parties in general?"
50% had a positive view, 25% had a negative view, and 25% were indifferent. This means not everyone in a political party actually felt positively about them. In fact, out of the twenty that said they were a party member, at least six are indifferent or negative.
I'm going to start looking at these questions two at a time, to begin the comparison between the two parties.
When we asked, "What is your opinion of the Democratic Action Front?" we got this response:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of the Loaded Baked Potato Party/Europeian Action Action Coalition?" we got this response:
Keep in mind, there were twelve DAF members taking this poll and eight Euro AAC members. That means not all the DAF members felt positively about their party, while the Euro AAC actually picked up two positive votes.
Now, looking at the platforms, when we asked "What is your opinion of the DAF platform?" the response was:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of the LBPP/ Euro AAC platform?" this was the response:
This is roughly the same for both parties, which is not too surprising, as we pointed out earlier, the parties have mostly similar platforms. It is worth noting that the DAF again has one member not feeling positive about their platform, while the Euro AAC picked up three positive votes. Also, the DAF again has more negative votes, despite the platforms being so similar.
Moving on to some key figures in the parties, when we asked "What is your opinion of Zenny, Chairwoman of the DAF?" people responded:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of Mousebumples, Chairwoman of the LBPP/Euro AAC?" people responded:
These results are pretty interesting. Out of the twelve DAF members taking the poll, two do not feel positively about their Chairwoman, and eleven people feel negatively about her, meaning she has more of a negative response than a positive one. Mousebumples, the other Chairwoman, despite only having eight of her party members take the poll, found sixteen people respond to her positively, meaning she is very popular outside of her party, with only four people responding negatively. Obviously, there are other factors at play here. This question tracks more personal politics than party politics, and Zenny has taken part in more actions that many would view as negative, such as her responses in the "Grand Hall Forward" interview, as opposed to Mousebumples.
Of course, parties are not just made of their leaders. We also asked about those in the supporting role for both parties. We asked "What is your opinion of Modernsin, Secretary of the DAF?" and got:
And we asked "What is your opinion of Kraketopia, Vice Chair of the LBPP/Euro AAC?" and got:
Here, the numbers are not so different. Both picked up positive votes from outside their party, but while Modernsin only picked up one, Kraketopia picked up eight, making him viewed just as positively as Mousebumples. The negative votes add another angle to this, however. Modernsin has four negative votes, while Kraketopia has six. For the first time in these party match-ups, DAF has come out on top, if only slightly. And while neither person is unpopular by any meaning of the word, in fact, Modernsin received about 50% postive votes, while Kraketopia received 57%, we can assume Kraketopia received more negative votes as a residual effect of the election he just went through. There are obviously those that did not want him to win re-election, so they might be carrying over those feelings into this poll.
While you might be surprised that Modernsin is as popular as he is, being a member of the seemingly unpopular DAF, it is important to keep in mind that parties are usually about the people in them. Despite the fact that whenever there is a public debate about the party both Zenny and Modernsin participate heavily, he remains popular. As they are both so vocal about their feelings about the DAF, why is their approval so different? Well, looking at Modernsin's record, he is a very active Senator, which makes him popular, and, unlike Zenny, the only controversy he really puts himself in involves the party; he also does not have a provocative newspaper, and has not recently resigned anything.
Looking ahead to the Senate elections, we wanted to gauge where the voters were at, with regards to party voting. We asked "Would you consider voting for a DAF candidate in the upcoming Senate election?" and the response was:
We also asked "Would you consider voting for a LBPP/ Euro AAC candidate in the upcoming Senate election?" and the response was:
It seems it doesn't really matter what party you belong to, as most voters will not discount you simply based on your party membership. This, again, stresses personal politics over party politics.
These next questions were similar to the last set, with one key difference. We asked "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate with a DAF affiliation?" the people responded:
We also asked "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate with a LBPP/Euro AAC affiliation?" the people responded:
For most voters, it still doesn't matter what party you are, they don't let it affect their decision. However, it seems the DAF's twelve members don't really seem to support the party here, as only five people think a DAF affiliation means they will more likely vote for that candidate, and twelve people think having a DAF affiliation will make you less likely to win their vote. Again, there are more negative votes than any other vote for the DAF. For the Euro AAC, it appears the eight party members feel their party's affiliation will make them more likely to vote for that candidate, but the majority find it not a consideration.
Along the same lines, we asked "Will your vote be influenced by a candidate having a LBPP/Euro AAC or DAF endorsement in the upcoming Senate election?" and people said:
So, it is about 50/50 here. Endorsements are likely to play some factor in the upcoming election, and they might sway a few votes, but they are not likely to ensure a candidate's victory. Remember that there are many more people in parties than thirteen, so some people in parties simply don't care who their party endorses.
Still looking ahead to the Senate race, we asked "Which party would you like to see in control of the Senate?" and got back:
This was one of the most varied responses we got in this poll. With twelve DAF members taking this poll, only seven people want to see the DAF control the Senate, and with eight Euro AAC members, only five people want to see the Euro AAC control the Senate. Perhaps unsurprisingly however, the most popular response, with 36% of the vote, was that neither party control the Senate. This means that people most likely want there to be a fair discussion, with neither side outweighing the other, in a more democratic process.
Our poll's last question is, without a doubt, the most controversial. Since I wanted to you to read the entire article, I put it near the end. And now, without further ado, we asked "Would you support restrictions on aggressive recruitment of newcomers by political parties, through legislation, public pressure, or otherwise?" and the people responded:
It is important to keep in mind that this poll was released before the controversy, the Attorney General's opinion, and the amendment in the Citizens' Assembly on this topic. Opinions very well may have changed, but we will use what we have to create an analysis. The region was essentially split on this issue, with 50% saying there should be no restriction, and 50% at least considering restriction. Since this time, the amendment from the Citizens' Assembly has been tabled, and a new proposal is being considered. Also, recruitment private messaging is under scrutiny, meaning there will likely be another debate in the near future.
To conclude, this article showed that these seemingly similar parties find most of their differences through personal, not party, politics. People are also more willing to look at a candidate's decorum and contributions over their affiliation. Our statistics have shown that there is a recent trend of more party members getting elected and appointed, yet unaffiliated citizens still hold the majority. As we move forward to the Senate elections and beyond, how will this affect our region? Only time will tell.
This article could not have been made without the help of my fellow EBC staff members. The poll was created by Sopo, the stats were compiled by Noto, and this article was edited by Sopo, writinglegend, and PhDre. Thank you all so much for making this article a reality.
Before we get to the results of this poll, let's talk about the current political parties that we have in a little detail. There are two parties in Europeia: the Europeian Action Action Coalition (formerly the Loaded Baked Potato Party) headed by World Assembly Delegate and all-around small rodent, Mousebumples, and the Democratic Action Front, led by Senator and all-around Zenny, Zenny Anumia.
The first party to discuss is the EAAC (formerly the LBPP), which was formed in early March of this year. This party is mostly comprised of experienced Europeians. In fact, they only have one or two newcomers in their entire party. The party's goals, as spelled out in its platform (just recently released), are Accessibility of the forum, Engagement of those gameside, Integration of the Cabinets, Outreach into gameside, and Understanding of newcomers. This party has endorsed Mousebumples for WA Delegate (it should be noted the DAF also did this) and Kraketopia for President, with both of these candidates winning their elections.
The other party in Europeia is the DAF, which began in late June of this year. This party is mostly comprised of newcomers, with only four or five more experienced Europeians in its membership roster. The party stands for the advancement of newcomers, a strong and independent republican navy, democracy, liberty, and transparency. This party has endorsed Mousebumples for WA Delegate (as did the EAAC), Imperium, Zenny, and Modernsin for Senate, and Ogastein for President, with Ogastein being the only candidate to not win his election.
As you may have noticed, the goals of these two parties are not really at odds with each other. Sure, one may be more focused on gameside, while the other is more focused on democracy and transparency, but there is no real reason you can't have both. In fact, these parties have rarely fought over political issues, at least officially, as they only have endorsed opposing candidates in the same race once. Even then, neither candidate listed their party affiliation at the ballot box, with both choosing to run as independents. In fact, the only recent candidate to list a partisan affiliation at the ballot box was Zenny Anumia herself, when she successfully ran for Senate back in June.
Although certain Europeians might not care to admit it, many of those involved in the higher levels of our government are currently members of a political party. In fact, here are the numbers of unaffiliated vs. affiliated members of government since the re-birth of political parties, which was the creation of the LBPP, in early March. 43 have been unaffiliated, which is 58% of the positions, (32 served the whole term and 11 served a partial term) vs. 31 who have been affiliated, which is 42% of the positions (26 had a whole term and 5 had a partial term). In total, there have been 74 positions (58 whole term/16 partial).
23 of those were held by LBPP, which is 31% of the total (21 whole term, 2 partial), vs 8 held by DAF, which is 11% of total (5 whole term, 3 partial).
In our current government, we have 12 unaffiliated, which is 52% of the total, vs 11 affiliated, which is 48%, out of a total 23 positions (this is all the number of positions, not the number of different individuals, as some of these are held by the same person). For the party breakdown, that's 5 LBPP, 22% of the total, vs 6 DAF, 26% of the total.
As far as unique individuals go, (since affiliation changes, we will go by the most recent affiliation for them to hold a position with) since party rebirth: 19 unaffiliated, 61% of the total, vs 12 affiliated, 39% of all individuals, with the total being 31 unique individuals. Of the 12 party members, 7 of them were LBPP, 23% of the total, vs 5 who were DAF, 16% of the total.
Currently, we have 10 unaffiliated, 53% of the total, vs 9 affiliated, 47% of the total, out of 19 individuals. For the party breakdown, that includes 4 LBPP, 21% of the total, vs 5 DAF, 26% of the total. WAD, Justices, CA Chairman, President, Vice-President, Senators, and Ministers were all included.
Here are some other things to note, not included in the data. Zenny's more recent Senate run is the only time any candidate has run under of these two party's banners. All five DAF members that have ever held office currently hold office. The DAF has more current members then the LBPP has ever had at one time. The DAF has only had members in Senate or Ministry positions, while the LBPP has had members in all of the positions covered.
Despite the LBPP holding the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, no Ministers are from that party, but three are from the DAF. With exception of current terms, since the creation of the LBPP, in all positions, unaffiliated vastly outnumbered affiliated every term, and maintain a majority, although the gap has been significantly closed since the creation of the DAF. The ratio of partial terms to whole terms is much higher for unaffiliated than affiliated, but the highest ratio comes from the DAF who have three partial terms to five whole terms (the party is still young, however, so this may change).
Now that we know just how influential our political parties' members have been, let's take a look at the results of our poll, which asked seventeen questions about our two parties currently in Europeia. This poll was open from Tuesday night to Saturday morning, and had twenty-eight responses.
The first question asked "Are you a member of a Europeian political party?"
This shows that our poll had 43% DAF, 29% LBPP/Euro AAC, and 29% belonging to no political party.
The next question asked "What is your opinion of Europeian political parties in general?"
50% had a positive view, 25% had a negative view, and 25% were indifferent. This means not everyone in a political party actually felt positively about them. In fact, out of the twenty that said they were a party member, at least six are indifferent or negative.
I'm going to start looking at these questions two at a time, to begin the comparison between the two parties.
When we asked, "What is your opinion of the Democratic Action Front?" we got this response:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of the Loaded Baked Potato Party/Europeian Action Action Coalition?" we got this response:
Keep in mind, there were twelve DAF members taking this poll and eight Euro AAC members. That means not all the DAF members felt positively about their party, while the Euro AAC actually picked up two positive votes.
Now, looking at the platforms, when we asked "What is your opinion of the DAF platform?" the response was:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of the LBPP/ Euro AAC platform?" this was the response:
This is roughly the same for both parties, which is not too surprising, as we pointed out earlier, the parties have mostly similar platforms. It is worth noting that the DAF again has one member not feeling positive about their platform, while the Euro AAC picked up three positive votes. Also, the DAF again has more negative votes, despite the platforms being so similar.
Moving on to some key figures in the parties, when we asked "What is your opinion of Zenny, Chairwoman of the DAF?" people responded:
And when we asked "What is your opinion of Mousebumples, Chairwoman of the LBPP/Euro AAC?" people responded:
These results are pretty interesting. Out of the twelve DAF members taking the poll, two do not feel positively about their Chairwoman, and eleven people feel negatively about her, meaning she has more of a negative response than a positive one. Mousebumples, the other Chairwoman, despite only having eight of her party members take the poll, found sixteen people respond to her positively, meaning she is very popular outside of her party, with only four people responding negatively. Obviously, there are other factors at play here. This question tracks more personal politics than party politics, and Zenny has taken part in more actions that many would view as negative, such as her responses in the "Grand Hall Forward" interview, as opposed to Mousebumples.
Of course, parties are not just made of their leaders. We also asked about those in the supporting role for both parties. We asked "What is your opinion of Modernsin, Secretary of the DAF?" and got:
And we asked "What is your opinion of Kraketopia, Vice Chair of the LBPP/Euro AAC?" and got:
Here, the numbers are not so different. Both picked up positive votes from outside their party, but while Modernsin only picked up one, Kraketopia picked up eight, making him viewed just as positively as Mousebumples. The negative votes add another angle to this, however. Modernsin has four negative votes, while Kraketopia has six. For the first time in these party match-ups, DAF has come out on top, if only slightly. And while neither person is unpopular by any meaning of the word, in fact, Modernsin received about 50% postive votes, while Kraketopia received 57%, we can assume Kraketopia received more negative votes as a residual effect of the election he just went through. There are obviously those that did not want him to win re-election, so they might be carrying over those feelings into this poll.
While you might be surprised that Modernsin is as popular as he is, being a member of the seemingly unpopular DAF, it is important to keep in mind that parties are usually about the people in them. Despite the fact that whenever there is a public debate about the party both Zenny and Modernsin participate heavily, he remains popular. As they are both so vocal about their feelings about the DAF, why is their approval so different? Well, looking at Modernsin's record, he is a very active Senator, which makes him popular, and, unlike Zenny, the only controversy he really puts himself in involves the party; he also does not have a provocative newspaper, and has not recently resigned anything.
Looking ahead to the Senate elections, we wanted to gauge where the voters were at, with regards to party voting. We asked "Would you consider voting for a DAF candidate in the upcoming Senate election?" and the response was:
We also asked "Would you consider voting for a LBPP/ Euro AAC candidate in the upcoming Senate election?" and the response was:
It seems it doesn't really matter what party you belong to, as most voters will not discount you simply based on your party membership. This, again, stresses personal politics over party politics.
These next questions were similar to the last set, with one key difference. We asked "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate with a DAF affiliation?" the people responded:
We also asked "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate with a LBPP/Euro AAC affiliation?" the people responded:
For most voters, it still doesn't matter what party you are, they don't let it affect their decision. However, it seems the DAF's twelve members don't really seem to support the party here, as only five people think a DAF affiliation means they will more likely vote for that candidate, and twelve people think having a DAF affiliation will make you less likely to win their vote. Again, there are more negative votes than any other vote for the DAF. For the Euro AAC, it appears the eight party members feel their party's affiliation will make them more likely to vote for that candidate, but the majority find it not a consideration.
Along the same lines, we asked "Will your vote be influenced by a candidate having a LBPP/Euro AAC or DAF endorsement in the upcoming Senate election?" and people said:
So, it is about 50/50 here. Endorsements are likely to play some factor in the upcoming election, and they might sway a few votes, but they are not likely to ensure a candidate's victory. Remember that there are many more people in parties than thirteen, so some people in parties simply don't care who their party endorses.
Still looking ahead to the Senate race, we asked "Which party would you like to see in control of the Senate?" and got back:
This was one of the most varied responses we got in this poll. With twelve DAF members taking this poll, only seven people want to see the DAF control the Senate, and with eight Euro AAC members, only five people want to see the Euro AAC control the Senate. Perhaps unsurprisingly however, the most popular response, with 36% of the vote, was that neither party control the Senate. This means that people most likely want there to be a fair discussion, with neither side outweighing the other, in a more democratic process.
Our poll's last question is, without a doubt, the most controversial. Since I wanted to you to read the entire article, I put it near the end. And now, without further ado, we asked "Would you support restrictions on aggressive recruitment of newcomers by political parties, through legislation, public pressure, or otherwise?" and the people responded:
It is important to keep in mind that this poll was released before the controversy, the Attorney General's opinion, and the amendment in the Citizens' Assembly on this topic. Opinions very well may have changed, but we will use what we have to create an analysis. The region was essentially split on this issue, with 50% saying there should be no restriction, and 50% at least considering restriction. Since this time, the amendment from the Citizens' Assembly has been tabled, and a new proposal is being considered. Also, recruitment private messaging is under scrutiny, meaning there will likely be another debate in the near future.
To conclude, this article showed that these seemingly similar parties find most of their differences through personal, not party, politics. People are also more willing to look at a candidate's decorum and contributions over their affiliation. Our statistics have shown that there is a recent trend of more party members getting elected and appointed, yet unaffiliated citizens still hold the majority. As we move forward to the Senate elections and beyond, how will this affect our region? Only time will tell.
This article could not have been made without the help of my fellow EBC staff members. The poll was created by Sopo, the stats were compiled by Noto, and this article was edited by Sopo, writinglegend, and PhDre. Thank you all so much for making this article a reality.
