24-06-2002 08:53									#1
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Isn't making personal elections for anything other than the president kinda... wierd?


I suggest that the president will be the only body directly elected.

Now I thought of 2 possible theories for the rest:

Theory 1

As for other duties, we shall have a vote between parties support. There will be the current parties, plus an "Independant" option.

What does it mean?

The president then should make up the government to be a reflection of the percentages of the votes.

So if DIA got 50%, Majority got 30% and Independant got 20% :

We have currently 9 minister offices.

4 will go to DIA.
3 will go to Majority
2 will go to people not related to parties.

What good does it do?
Each party gets strength relative to the support of it's people.

Theory 2

The President elects people whom he wishes to fill in each role.

Theory 3
There are personality polls.

But the president has a veto which is worth 10 votes.

Meaning, if cadidate A is leading over candidate B by less than 10 votes, the President can still elect candidate B.

What good does it do?
The president has administrative power and is not held back by opposition.


Why are you suggesting all of this, Siro, are you bored?
No.

But I have two things in mind.

1) Parties, currently, are meaningless.

2) Personal elections lead to a wide array of people with different views being elected. This infact forces a unity government, where all the people are from different parties and must get along.

This could potencially harm the game progress, as some persons are stronger and more vocal and will possibly force their views on others, making them redudant.

Or, this could instead halt the game, if the ministers are split about something, and no agreement is reached.



These are just suggestions.

I urge you to develop better ideas and post them.

	24-06-2002 09:03									#2
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I like Theory 1 Siro. Very much I must say.

I have considered the risk of one party sweeping the elections 2 or more times consecutively. We might then lose a significant number of people who drop away due to their views being shut out.

A lot of thought should go into it if we do change something though.

BTW. I do not belong to any party, and I have no intention of ever running for a ministerial post. That could change, but at the moment I am having more fun focusing on whatever I feel like without having to pay too much attention to politics.

	24-06-2002 09:05									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Sirotnikov Theory 1 As for other duties, we shall have a vote between parties support. There will be the current parties, plus an "Independant" option. What does it mean? The president then should make up the government to be a reflection of the percentages of the votes. So if DIA got 50%, Majority got 30% and Independant got 20% : We have currently 9 minister offices. 4 will go to DIA. 3 will go to Majority 2 will go to people not related to parties. What good does it do? Each party gets strength relative to the support of it's people. Theory 2 The President elects people whom he wishes to fill in each role. But I have two things in mind. 1) Parties, currently, are meaningless. 2) Personal elections lead to a wide array of people with different views being elected. This infact forces a unity government, where all the people are from different parties and must get along. This could potencially harm the game progress, as some persons are stronger and more vocal and will possibly force their views on others, making them redudant. Or, this could instead halt the game, if the ministers are split about something, and no agreement is reached.

I have to disagree that parties are meaningless. Parties provide a way for the people to organize their thoughts. Theory 1 sounds alright but if we where to do theory 1 maybe we should have the president appoint people who then must be approved by the citizens.

	24-06-2002 09:07									#4
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For our purposes, direct elections are best but nice brainstorming. But no party is official and they are a pain when they have too much influence, like our current American government.

	24-06-2002 09:10									#5
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I dislike theory 1 cuz, the Prez might be of one party, but if the majority of votes go to another party (like our current status), then all the prez needs to do is put the members of the opposing party into offices deemed less neccesary for whatever his goals are.. and put his own men in areas he needs them.

I like our current system. If i had my way, i would kill off all of the parties. Parties make the game more vicious than need be, I think. It may make it more interesting (and to that effect, more fun), but if everyone ran as independents, the game might run more smoothly, because there would be no smear campaigns, and less agendas (hidden or not) to screw up our progress.

	24-06-2002 09:14									#6
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Ninot has a point, but I don't see how we can prevent clubs from forming.

Would it even be a good thing to outlaw political clubs? If the people want to do it... this is a democracy.

I think the thing to do is to adjust our institutions to suit a healthy body politic as well as the needs and aspirations of our people, not the other way around.

	24-06-2002 09:14									#7
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I like the idea but it gets hairy when it comes to deciding which party gets which post. Mabye we should bring back the idea of the senate. Plus, I think people vote for individuals when it comes to ministry posts and not parties.

	24-06-2002 10:50									#8
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As others have said, they're good ideas, but in reality they wouldn't work. It would take a great amount of effort and time just to change things from the way they are now. That in addition to the fact that there are many flaws in any new proposal that need to be ironed out, and that would take even more time. By the time that a plan was worked out and put into practice, the traditional way of doing things will have become so driven into people they won't want to change, or they won't be able to handle it.

Okay, so little of what I said makes any sense, but you get the point.

	24-06-2002 11:34									#9
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dont like the ideas. sorry

	24-06-2002 12:21									#10
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Hmmm. A good thread for discussing how things 'could' work. Defeatism such as 'it could never work' may be premature.

No ones holding a poll yet.

	24-06-2002 13:07									#11
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Interesting idea, and I have thought a while about it. But I don't think it will be good for Apolytonia. It forces arguments between the parties what office shall go to what party. It forces the parties to nominate candidates for every office, with or without appropriate competence. And it discriminates the free candidates, because they will speak with only one voice in the arguments for the offices, while the parties speak with multiple.

I don't think it will be good to give too much power to political parties. That leads to no good, see real life. Competence shall trump party membership.

	24-06-2002 16:41									#12
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Sir Ralph said almost exactly what I was going to say. Option 1 might be OK, but how do you decide who gets what office? It would overall be less fair and take the right to fvote for only who they want to away from the people.

	24-06-2002 16:52									#13
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Parties actually wield a lot of power. The Coalition, for example, has 18 members, so any of their candidates has a very big boost in the elections.

	24-06-2002 17:02									#14
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Wouldnīt that simply be too realistic. Also the adding of parties that actually wield power would force those of us that want to play to choose between them. I canīt see how people who just donīt have that much time or donīt want to spend that amount of time on it would continue.

	24-06-2002 18:38									#15
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You have some Ace ideas, Siro.

I kinda like the 1st option (as a non-party member - don't believe any party lists with me in them - I'm there only by default and will exit soon enough).

The 3rd option: I HATE the idea of a Presidential veto on ANYTHING. The President does not decide these things. The Prez and Ministers may well outline the path we take, but the ppl have the absolute power and all decisions made by them should be final.

If we did have party votes, then the parties should mention their candidates for each position, also for the Independents. You may like a party's ideas but believe that certain members (eg the ones that aren't here all that often) are no good for Ministerial positions.

Otherwise (as it is now) parties are just fun more than anything - and that's what we're here for, isn't it?

	25-06-2002 01:55									#16
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I kinda agree with MWIA.. but like i said....

my general stance is I don't like Parties, or Party Politics. I try and distance myself from the DIA vs. Coalition debates. The power they have might be inherent in that they are a group.. and as far as I am concerned, that is mighty powerful enough. I like the fact that I will run again for Foreign Minister under the name Ninot, and not under a general banner of DIA. And that is even tho I am a subscribed DIA member.

	25-06-2002 01:58									#17
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Oh! i gotta throw this out

the DIA was declared a party only after the elections. All of our members won on the account that they were independants with some good promises. Only once the DIA became a party did any of the elected DIA ministers get a tun of flack, and that was because of the party stance on certain issues (like war).

The DIA ministers were elected because they weren't in a party, not because they were. Maybe this contributes to the fact that perhaps parties are less favorable to a good independant.

	25-06-2002 02:03									#18
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Back then there weren't any parties anyways, so it wasn't really important then.
Now when you have 10+ members per party, and only about 60 people total voting, party membership can be quite helpful. I feel that as the game goes on, the membership of parties will drastically increase, or parties will go extinct, one or the other. We have yet to see how things will turn out.

	25-06-2002 02:08									#19
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Yeah, I think partisan politics could become a destructive force in our political system.

Ninot has a point on the elections occuring before parties.

	25-06-2002 03:10									#20
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If the partisan politics become destructive, that is a part of the game. If they do, they will just kill themselves off for the next rise of our great society......

All in the spirit of things.

I personally hate and despise the partisan politics. My fear is that in doing such it won't be held to the game, but may make some players dislike each other personally. So far I don't think this has happened.

As such, I refuse to be a part of the smear. I will gladly point out the smear so that feeling are not hurt, and that people that may not realize they are doing such do come to realize. And thus hopefully correct their actions.

Peace all, except to all those who get in my way.....

	25-06-2002 03:18									#21
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Party politics add a degree of reality (and, for some, fun) to the game.

	25-06-2002 15:07									#22
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Siro,

Can you elaborate on any of your ideas and how they could apply to the Poly Demo game?