¡Estimadas es estimats Uniunistaes!As mandated by Constitution II.E, this Convention is entitled to nominate a candidate for Seneschal in the upcoming elections, who will be placed first on our party list.
It seems that it falls to me to do so; as I did at the inaugural Convention (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4281.0). And reading my speech from that Convention, I'm struck with a feeling of
detxa vischtă.
We
still have a party run by an unrepentant sexual harasser. I give that leader credit, though, to have figured out a way around being shunned by everyone else in Talossa: procuring the immigration of a new member who is not going to complain about being sexually harassed by their party leader. I wonder if this person is actually aware of their party leader and beloved companion's recent behaviour in Talossa (https://wiki.talossa.com/Law:61RZ13_Sense_of_the_Ziu:_A_First_Step_Towards_Decency), though.
Happily, the
cordon sanitaire is
mostly holding; although not entirely. The Foreign Minister seems to see fit to allow sex pests to act as "information liaisons" (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=5041.0) to other countries. When I questioned the Seneschal about this at the Informal Session, he seemed somewhat less than full-throated in defending this; I wonder whether it was a "solo run" by the Foreign Minister which the Seneschal backed for the sake of Cabinet unity. Nonetheless, this kind of thing will not survive the election of a URL-led government. For us, no sex pests means no sex pests in any role in the gift of the Government; short of sincere repentance.
And we
still have a major political party - one now leading the Government! - which dislikes the basic principle of representative democracy. The Seneschal holds firm to his belief that a Cosa vote is a vote for a "brand", a party leader; that the Cosa is simply a mathematical construct demonstrating how popular each brand/leader was on Election Day, that "seats" should be in the free gift of such a leader to hand out post facto.
In contrast, the URL believes that a Cosa election should be just that -
an election of members of the Cosa. Voters should be, as far as practicable, choosing their preferred representative or team of representatives. If a party benefits big from getting the approval of less-active voters, but does not have the will or capacity to find people who wish to actively
represent voters, that should count as a penalty against such a party. This is our
Democracy Agenda. We think Talossa should be a representative democracy (under a constitutional monarchy,
if you insist), as that would be understood in any other country. We bluntly think that anyone who disagrees - even using the figleaf of "Talossan peculiarity" - is someone who benefits from a lack of democracy.
To this extent, our victory in pushing through the Pseudo-Real Cosa - and our agreement with the Government to let the Broosking Swing amendment through (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=5093.0) - is a huge, positive step. If this survives through to the 64th Cosa, then at least there will no longer be a situation where one MC's vote will count more than 20 times than another. Although - if the Seneschal's argument were to prevail - of course a party leader who wins a majority could say "I assign 11 seats to
me!", and therefore
be the Cosa, in the same way that King Robert I could in the late 80s. So let's not let that happen.
In any case, that brings up the biggest victory for Talossa of this governmental term; the belated conclusion of a "non-aggression pact" between the Government and the URL. This should have happened before the First Clark. The URL were out there offering not only an abstention, but even a YES on the VoC, in return for policy/legislative concessions. The Progressive Alliance were not interested - as the Seneschal-to-be said openly (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4805.msg39291#msg39291), because they were personally angry at the URL's campaign. I'm not sure why I would have expected any thing else. Part of the PA leader's political approach is to collect a "broad tent", held together less by positive policy planks but by resentment of the outgoing government. The more we critiqued this negative politics, the more resentful they got.
But we saw where this "government by spite" ended up. It ended up with the Government cutting a deal with an absolute monarchist party led by a relatively new citizen - one for whom I have quite a lot of personal affection! - who ended up both politically and personally unreliable. Which led the Government back to us, to make a deal that could have been done better and earlier if we weren't voting out of hurt feelings. The
Democracy Agenda is, in part, a hope for a Talossan politics which is based on political principle rather than personal beef. It requires a Cosa consisting of teams of representatives, not by Big Bosses trading "seats" as if they were poker chips.
Nonetheless, I have actually enjoyed relations with the Seneschal over the last month or so. When you take the partisan heat out of the equation, patriotic Talossans of goodwill can come to agreements. And the Seneschal
is patriotic, in the sense that KR1 defined: "Talossan patriotism is the determination that Talossa should continue to exist". The URL are, in our own way, also patriots.
***
Leaving all that aside, though; the Democracy Agenda/constitutional issue, and recriminations about how PA/URL relations have gone during this Cosa, is all well and good. But it doesn't make an argument for a change of Government.
How, for example, should the URL respond to the Government's recent Immigration statement (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=5144.msg42093#new)? The statement makes a lot of assertions about immigration statistics and immigration policy. I confess that my personal attitude to all this is that it's somewhat irrelevant. I'm not a "natalist". I think the raw number of Talossan citizens is of far less interest than the number of active participants in Talossan culture and institutions. Although, to go back to points mentioned above, it shouldn't surprise me that the party leader who's insistent that his party shouldn't have to find active legislators is more interested in raw numbers. ("If you can't quantify it, it doesn't exist" is one of the regular traps of economic theory, parenthetically.)
I mention this as an example, because a lot of people out there
don't vote on the constitutional issue, more or less democracy. They don't vote based on personal beef, alhamdulillah. They vote based on perceptions of general "competence" and "activity". This is the role of any party who wants to make a positive case that we should
replace the incumbent government.
This is the challenge for the Union of Free Reformists. The argument for the Democracy Agenda is our raziun d'estar. But that won't win us an election. An alternative Seneschal who can promise to administer and to promote an active and healthy Talossa, and to build a team of not only legislators but shadow Ministers to do so, is what is required.
And there is none more qualified to do that in this party than
@Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be , whom I nominate to be the URL candidate for Seneschal of Talossa at the 63rd Cosa election.
¡Så vivadra Talossa! ¡Så vivadra Talossa democrätic!