NationStates Jolt Archive

Welcome to the first four-yearly Xirniumite election thread!

Herein I shall post vaguely regular articles on the status of the Xirniumite election campaign and substantially less regular features on the Eternal Republic’s domestic political landscape, and you are all welcome to help me by voting accordingly (although most of you may wish to avoid voting until much closer to the election date). The results of this poll will be used in a nifty little calculator, the internal workings of which are a closely guarded trade secret, in order to come up with the final composition of that grandest of all Xirniumite institutions of state, Parliament.

The average Xirniumite (and here I ask that you exercise your powers of imagination, for the purposes of voting) usually possess greater or lesser support for northern Europe’s much vaunted social model. Not uncommon therefore is a favourable opinion towards a high proportion of workforce membership in trade unions, high-quality public services, and high taxes (and Xirniumite taxes are certainly high!).

It would be unthinkable for any party expecting to achieve mainstream status to challenge free schooling and university education, high-quality public health care, generous social security benefits, state-funded maternity and paternity leave, universal pensions, and a vast range of other fluffy socialist initiatives (many of which shall surely be trumpeted by the Progressives). Adjustments on the margins are, of course, perfectly reasonable to most Xirniumites, and are indeed the centrepiece initiatives of some would-be governing parties.

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Elections Finally Called in the Twilight Republic

Sep 23rd 2007 | NAÈRÄTH
From the Intelligencer print edition

THE twenty-third of September marks the feast day of the autumnal equinox this year, one of a staggering sixteen different public holidays in the Eternal Republic. Xirniumites everywhere celebrate the annual festival with forest dancing, great bonfires, and fattened roast goose. Silk banners in dark reds, burnt yellows and deep indigos hang with shaded lanterns, and every young girl frets over her pretty new costume for the midnight ball. As the cities are deserted and people make for the countryside or the mountains, they seem concerned with little more than merrymaking and lovemaking.

For those of us (like your correspondent) left behind, politics seems a poor substitute. This is even truer still when the politics reported is Xirniumite politics, which seems to have been remarkably free of controversy and scandal of late. That pantomime affair of the electronics upgrades for phantom jet aeroplanes seems to have finally blown over, and that school staffed with well paid administrators, but without teachers or pupils, has finally been filled. Cabinet minister resignations might be exciting for a while, but they also give closure to an issue, and unlike in other countries there are few great ideological debates to fill the vacuum in Xirnium. Perhaps it is this boring but quietly idyllic lull that has inspired the latest political development.

Parliamentary elections are to be held in Xirnium on the third of November, the Government has announced. Prime Minister Heather Gilda, whose Progressive Party has been in power since 2003, called the elections this morning at a press conference outside the Houses of Parliament. The Writs will issue on the twenty-fifth of September, proroguing Parliament and dissolving the House of Assembly. In addition to their first of autumn holiday, Xirniumites, it seems, will have a six week election campaign to look forward to.

The campaign looks set to depart strongly from those of recent decades, which have all been dominated by the country’s three main political parties. Of particular note has been the rise of numerous new, well-funded minor parties with carefully defined policies. The Social Democrats, who continue to languish in the polls, look unlikely to make much of a credible alternative to the Progressive Party, but voter dissatisfaction with the lack of direction shown by the Gilda Government point to what might turn out to be an interesting scramble for second (and perhaps coalition) place.

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Sir-
As a visitor who has spent some time in the Eternal Republic, and as a person who has spent much of her years observing political and social processes in a wide variety of cultures I can only hope the Xirniumite people look upon the coming elections as they do a fine wine. The various political parties and their champions must always respect the Republic's traditions and keep personal rivalries to a minimum, as the people deserve greater than debates mired in backtracking and reversal of position on any one issue.

Perhaps it is just the wishful thinking of one observer in regards to hoping for a fair and fluid series of debates, but the rise of these new parties brings uncertainty to an otherwise majestic, thoughtful process. In conclusion, one hopes the dissatisfaction of the voting public with Lady Gilda's sense of direction in leadership does not lead to unwise and uninformed choice.

Ms Katherine Orini, observer to a noble and faithful process.

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SIR—

You began your article marking the announcement of this year’s parliamentary campaign with a somewhat flippant reference to Xirnium’s sixteen national public holidays. By most international standards, including those of the other rich nations in the Europe-Atlantic, this number is an unusually generous one. It is even more so when one looks at statutory leave and not just public holidays. Xirniumites are entitled by Act of Parliament to six working weeks of paid leave a year; many (through collective bargaining) get at least eight. Of course then there is that national treasure, the 35-hour week, and Xirnium’s recklessly munificent minimum wage, equivalent to €9 per hour and €1260 per month, but I digress.

The two new public holidays that were created by the Progressive Government each cost the economy of the Eternal Republic tens of billions of aythiri. Xirniumites love their leisure and cherish what is, granted, a quality of life surpassed nowhere else in the Europe-Atlantic, but they do so at the risk of sacrificing hard won competitive advantages that may one day spell the end of the social model. Brave is the party that would ever adopt so unpopular a policy as the reduction of statutory leave; even though reducing such to no higher than twenty days, and allowing workers the choice of contracting out of the rest of their annual leave, would be far a fairer method for struggling families. One might hope, however, that the parties will at the very least pledge not to create any new public holidays, and stay away from populist politics.

Ródolphe Fleúdrian
Director of Public Services Policy
Confederation of Xirniumite Heavy Industry

Iáthërn, Xirnium

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Xirnium’s election

Working together

Nov 5th 2007 | NAÈRÄTH
From the Intelligencer print edition


Voters signal a decisive shift further to the Left, but Gildá will need Naudriennë’s Greens to govern

PROGRESSIVE Party apparatchiks will tell you that given the gloomy polls released throughout the campaign the final result exceeded even their most desperate hopes. But whichever way one spins it the outcome was messy. One of the closest parliamentary races in decades, neither major party was able to secure enough votes to govern in their own right. Heather Gildá, leader of the Progressives and prime minister of two years, has already begun negotiations on forming a new government, and it now seems highly likely that a coalition between her party and the Greens will be negotiated before the end of the week.

In many ways the election result has redefined the Xirniumite political landscape, a curious outcome given it followed one of the dullest and uninspiring campaigns in living memory. The socialist Progressive Party, having governed with an absolute majority since 1999, has suffered the worst electoral swing against it since coming to power in the early nineties, losing almost fifty seats in the 500-seat lower house. Several key Progressive seats have fallen to their rivals the Liberals, who otherwise also fared poorly, including the once very safe electorate of Eldâliemba, unseating the current defence minister, and the bellweather marginal of Ardär.

Any talk of the Left’s demise in Xirniumite politics however is very premature indeed. The Greens have polled their very best result since they first entered into parliament in the early seventies, surging to a little over seventeen percent of all seats in the legislative assembly. They were helped primarily by a voter preoccupation with climate change and fashionable conservationism, but also by left wing dissatisfaction with some of the more liberal economic policies of the Progressives. Although Gildá could conceivably govern with the help of the Centre Party in lieu of the Greens, such is probably unlikely, giving Greens party leader Horténse Naudriennë significant negotiating power in any coalition arrangement. It is expected that the ecologists will demand cabinet positions, or at least ministerial posts, and a rewritten environment policy in exchange for partnership.


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Perhaps the biggest winner in Saturday’s election will be the far-right populist National Union Party (NUP). The NUP has built their campaign around prominent personality Augústine Verdâlgelot, former lecturer turned firebrand cultural chauvinist, who far and away has won the campaign’s competition of being meanest to foreigners and most suspicious of Abrahamaic monotheists. His policies are simple and divisive, including the establishment of an indefinite moratorium on non-European immigration to Xirnium, the erection of “protectionist barriers against cheap, low-quality imports from places like the Confederated Peoples and People’s Fiefdom,” and a focus on family friendly legislation. The NUP’s nationwide swing has been the most positive of any party since the end of the Second World War.

Both at home and abroad, at least in so far as the business of governing is concerned, the election result seems to promise a government that will offer more of the same. In the upper house, even with the help of the Greens, the Progressive Party will not command a majority of seats. Most analysts doubt this will prove much of a problem though, as the Liberal Democrats will be loath to challenge the reform agenda of the government after such an abysmally poor showing. “The legislative council is a house of review,” Progressive frontbencher Faústien Vilvârin neatly quipped, “not a house of obstruction.” Until such time that a serious, united opposition appears in the upper house, until a counterbalance is made to the remarkable solidarity of the minor Leftist parites, the mandate of the government would seem to remain unchallenged.

And what about the government’s agenda beyond the domestic sphere? The prime minister’s fair-weather Atlanticist, foreign minister Eléanor Sabelinà, has hinted at a continued policy of strengthening engagement with Amestria and pushing integration with Xirnium’s global strategic partners, focusing on promoting economic development, security and harmony in the West Atlantic, and galvanising international action on climate change. Your correspondent would also suggest that interested readers keep an eye on what Port Sunlight and Naèräth are getting up to over the coming months.

President Kairis called Prime Minister Gildá the next day to congratulate her on her victory. The President was cheerful and, although she must have been cognizant that such a close victory was a defeat for the previously much stronger Progressives, she gave no sign of it. She reminded Prime Minister Gildá that in accordance with the Confederal Constitution, she would be stepping down in January and, in accordance with the concordance system which governed Confederal politics, Sarah Sacker would almost certainly become President during that time. She spoke to the Prime Minister about common interests such as Western Atlantic integration, the struggle against trafficking in persons, the Melian fisheries and collective security. Without actually mentioning it, she also subtly reminded the Xirniumite that she had promised to return the honor when Gildá had visited New Amsterdam over a year ago.