The database does not seem to register that @Françal I. Lux was added to the FreeDems list

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on April 27, 2021, 04:54:10 PM
PARTY REGISTRATION

* Full Party name: Free Democrats of Talossa
* Party Initials: FreeDems
* 50 word statement: The Free Democrats want to lead Talossa's government for a fourth successful term. We need to not just recruit new citizens, but find ways to get existing citizens involved again. We want a Historic Compromise between monarchy and republicanism, and to grow the Talossan-speaking population. Txoteu Davinescu for Seneschál!
* Party Leader(s): @Txoteu Davinescu
* Candidate list (incomplete):

• @Txoteu Davinescu
• @Miestră Schivă
• @Cresti Nouăcastră-Läxhirescu
• @Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir
• @Martì-Pair Furrxhéir *
• @Açafat del Val *
• @Françal I. Lux
• ? ? ?

(* also standing for the Senäts)

* Party platform URL: https://freedemstalossa.wordpress.com/2021/04/24/free-democrats-for-the-56th-cosa-election-may-2021/

و سلام.

Pray for al-Quds/Jerusalem.

Can I draw the SoS's attention to the fact that the NPW have a candidate list now?

Quote from: Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu on April 29, 2021, 10:23:44 AM
* Full Party name: New Peculiar Way
* Party Initials: NPW
* 50 word statement: A Peculiar dawn is breaking.  A recognition that we are not as we could be.  A recognition that we could be more than a miniature imitation of macronations.  We have already jettisoned Wisconsin law.  Let us jettison other things we do not need and replace them with that which is uniquely Talossan.

* Party Leader(s): @Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu
* Candidate list
      @Iason Taiwos

Quote from: Viteu on May 12, 2021, 08:15:08 PM
Because I'm in an oddly good mood:

ithoughtclassicallatinalsodidnthaveaspacebetweenwordsoranyothergrammaticalmarkersbuticouldbewrongbutwhoknowsthenagainiamahorribleproofreaderformyownworksoperhapsthatwouldcoverupmytyposyesokayimsoldonclassicallatin

ACTUALLYTHEYDIDNTHAVELOWERCASELETTERSSOITLOOKEDMORELIKETHIS
PEOPLEWEREAMAZEDBYJULIUSCAESARBECAUSEHECOULDREADWRITINGLIKETHISATASINGLEGLANCE

The basic "US-international" keyboard on Windows, allows me to do all those characters with no problem, except for A-breve. The Linux-xfce US-international keyboard includes the A-breve. Luckily, A-breve isn't strictly necessary in modern Talossan.

Nominations will remain open until whatever deadline the Chancery imposes for preparing the ballot. Nominations have closed to save work for the Chancery.

I am going to stand as a candidate for the Praisidïeu, as I am entitled to seeing as there has been only 1 other nomination.

Our new Elections and Referendums Law states as follows (Title III, section 4.2):

Quotethe Secretary of State wishes to declare themselves a candidate for the election, then they shall either -

    appoint one or more Deputies as provided in Title I.2, and shall delegate all their functions under this Act for the remainder of that election to such Deputies; or:
    make a report to the Praisidïeu and the General Assembly explaining why it is in the best interests of Fiova for them to be a candidate, and explain the steps that they will take to maintain confidence in the fairness of the election.
        The Praisidïeu or the General Assembly shall be entitled to reject this report and thereby disqualify the Secretary of State from being a candidate, and/or receiving any "write-in" votes, at any time before balloting day.

My report is as follows:

1) it is in the best interests of Fiova for there to be at least two people who take responsibility for the future of the province, if we don't want the last 3 years of apathy and nothing to continue.
2) since the actual voting will be entirely conducted by the Chancery, and the counting conducted by an automatic system, I don't see that there is much I could do to "rig" the election. Nevertheless, if anyone objects to this before Balloting Day, I will withdraw my name from official consideration.

My 50 word statement is as follows:

QuoteSince I'm just taking up space on the ballot, I'm going to fill up the rest of my 50 words with the names of Blue Öyster Cult songs. Imaginos, Don't Fear The Reaper, Godzilla, Dominance and Submission, Veteran of the Psychic Wars, Florida Man, Great Sun Jester, Career of Evil...

Eh, if you want to be the Goofy party this time, you'll have to turn it up several notches to beat the KLüP

Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on March 27, 2021, 09:23:46 PM
Fîovâ - No election, the General Assembly consists of all citizens.

You need to change this to:

Fiovă - Election for the Prasidïeu conducted by the Chancery. Instructions: "Ranked choice voting, same as for Senators."

If anything is worth responding to, it's this: John once carried out the functions of the monarchy adequately. In recent years, he has become interested (as his actions demonstrate) in nothing at all but protecting his own power; and in thumbing his nose at those who would take away or hold him responsible for the exercise of that power.

Sacking him, and just replacing him with someone else who would be corrupted by the power and trappings of the monarchy into thinking they've got the Mandate of Heaven and have the right to treat the rest of Talossa like inferiors - just like John and Ben were - would be a waste of time. John is not, or was not, a bad man; he's been corrupted by 15 years at the head of a bad system. Far better to change the system so that - for example - we could keep John as King but he would be required to behave, and to act in concert and consultation with the elected Government.

The Historic Compromise is precisely the agreement between reformist and conservative forces in Talossa about just how much freedom of action the King should have, and just what kind of sanctions await if he (for example) starts displaying outrageous favouritism to a deeply unpopular brown-noser.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 10, 2021, 11:13:49 PM
Historic Compromise

Keep doing that. It makes the concept look good and you look petty and bitter.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 10, 2021, 11:13:49 PM
But when he appointed me as his regent a month later, you were upset.

Because you're the Most Divisive Person In Talossa, and you only got the job because you're a brown-noser and because Absentee John thought it would annoy us.

Quote from: xpb on May 09, 2021, 09:52:27 PM
As opposed to the ad hominum attacks

That's ad hominem, and like many others, you are misusing the term. No-one but no-one has attacked you personally; although the rhapsodic nature of your defence of the traditional monarchy is attracting some amount of mirth.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on May 09, 2021, 05:46:20 PM
Your party leader made a formal speech about how one of his big priorities was taking away the honours system from the king's purview

We've prepared a formal statement explaining our position on that which dismantles the outrage-baiting "spin" you put on it. We were just waiting to see whether you would stop running that line, but apparently not; so we have to put it on record why, in particular, you getting a peerage stinks in our nostrils.

The Free Democrats of Talossa would like to dispel some misconceptions that have arisen as to our attitude to the Historic Compromise between monarchy and republicanism in general, and our attitude to the current honours system in particular.

There were two aspects of the recent investiture ceremony presided over by King John, back from "absence without leave", which were not just offensive to the Free Democrats, but seemed designed to provoke, annoy and infuriate us, our partners in Government the New Peculiar Way, and the political majority in general.

The first was the granting of a hereditary peerage to the outgoing Regent.

If there were a competition for "Most Divisive Person in Talossa", now-Baron Alexandreu Davinescu would certainly come in one of the top 2 positions. He is extremely strongly identified with support, some would say sycophancy, towards the Monarchy, and an extremely combative and personally pugnacious attitude towards the Free Democrats and other pro-reform parties. The Baron's insistence on defending not the monarchy but the current occupant of the throne - who has by his actions become the best advertisement for Talossa not to have a life-term monarchy - further cheapens this defense. One Free Democrat (not currently in our party's leadership) describes his record as "sowing divisiveness, spreading doubt, fear mongering , and baiting political opponents".

None of this is to say that his performance as Regent was anything less than competent – indeed, it was a real and welcome improvement upon the King's recent performance. But the award of a Barony glosses over the question of why the job needed to be done at all. The King was giving one of the highest awards in the land to one of his closest political supporters for cleaning up a mess that he, the King, created himself, for absolutely no reason at all that he dares explain to his Kingdom.

Merely serving as a placeholder is not enough, we believe, to deserve elevation to the nobility. Even worse, this "cozy" arrangement between King and King's most loyal follower bears the nasty smell of a "quid pro quo". There is no way of knowing whether an actual bargain was made – service as Regent, and therefore complicity in the King "going AWOL", in exchange for a peerage – which would be a scandal, if true. The mere suspicion cheapens the entire system.

Given all that, this peerage was interpreted as a direct "middle-finger" gesture to our party and our allies. It is to be noticed that the bestowal of a Knighthood upon this same person at the time of Reunision did not attract much opposition, precisely because it was balanced by the same award granted to the other candidate for "Most Divisive Person in Talossa". If the King had deigned to talk his business with us, we might have suggested ways to reward the Regent's service that took account of our sensibilities.

The second, the question of the well-deserved knighthood granted to Sir Gödafrïeu Valcádac'h, is a more nuanced issue.

The Government originally gave the King a recommendation for Sir Gödafrïeu to receive the Order of the Flag (UrB). Under El Lexhatx F.40, the UrB is a National Honour "granted on the advice of the Government" as opposed to the senior Dynastic Honour, the Për la Naziun (UrN), which is wholly in the gift of the King. We had no power to recommend GV for the UrN.

The Government – including the authors of this law – assumed that "granted on the advice of the Government" meant that the King had no discretion, that the King would do what the Government said. This is clearly not how His Majesty interpreted the law. Even worse, based on comments from the Regent, it appears that there has been a deliberate decision by the King not to give any new awards of the Order of the Flag; and therefore, that no recommendations from the Government for this award will be followed.

It was the opinion of some in the Government that the King had broken the law by awarding Sir Gödafrïeu the UrN rather than the UrB, and the possibility of a Cort case was discussed. However, this was rejected, as the last thing we wanted to do was to spoil Sir Gödafrïeu's "special day" or sully his well-deserved award, whatever the initials.

We decided instead to approach the whole subject "obliquely", as the King likes to say. To avoid looking churlish or resentful, we decided to raise the question in principle of whether the King should be required to co-operate more closely with the elected Government on the questions of peerages and honours. That was, for us, the real issue – that the King had shown contempt and disrespect to the elected Government that could have been avoided through prior consultation, or even mitigated by being given some warning.

Instead, this issue has been spun by Baron Davinescu in particular as evidence of some kind of hidden agenda, of bad faith, of sneakiness, or proof that the Compromise is some kind of low-down trick. We might add in passing that the Baron's behaviour here is par for the course from him, and is precisely the reason why we don't think he was the right person to receive a peerage.

After discussion with friendly political opponents, we understand that our "oblique" approach was a blunder, and we should have simply been honest about why we were upset about the recent investiture of honours. We hope that this statement clears a lot of issues up – no doubt the people who were already angry at us will still be angry, but at least for good reasons this time.

If the purpose of being a Monarchy and having a King is for the pageantry and symbolism - what Bagehot call the "dignified" rather than the "efficient" parts of the constitution - those should be what we're debating here. The Historic Compromise keeps all those things intact.

On the contrary, if the purpose of having a Monarchy is to vest ultimate responsibility for the State in the hands of one individual for life, there is no practical justification for this. Talossan history proves that Kings start getting lazy and egomaniacal after a decade in office, so they shouldn't get that as of right.