The Union Recaps the 62nd Cosă

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Good evening, Talossa! As the last Clark of the term has come to a close, we begin to prepare for yet another general election. Like most of the other established parties, the URL will be going into more detail on our platform for the upcoming election and the 63rd Cosă, but perhaps just as important as figuring out where we should go next is establishing where we are now and how we got here. And so this thread will serve as the URL's recap of the 62nd Cosă and the Government that has held office in that time.

There is, to be blunt, quite a bit to critique, and overall we can fit most of it into three main categories. We anticipate that some (or most) of this criticism will be framed as personal in nature by a Government desperate to cling to power. Nothing could be further from the truth; we criticize action (or lack thereof), we criticize principles (or lack thereof too), but we leave personal attacks out of it.

Don't worry -- all is not doom and gloom. We'll get into the Union's positive program for the next term soon, but we think it's more helpful for us to get our bearings first.

And so, without further ado, we jump into the first category...

Poor Judgment

If we go in chronological order, it makes sense to start with the poor decision-making that the Baron and his Government have shown on several occasions throughout the term. First off is the arrangement that brought this Government into power in the first place. The Baron and his party announced that they were forming a coalition government with IDT. The latter party, In Defensa Traditionis, ran in the last election on an explicitly anti-democratic platform, instead advocating absolute (later "executive") monarchism and socially-conservative "Western Orthodox Christian values". Instead of accepting our offer of a grand coalition, the PA chose to turn away from the political center. Their explanation for this, concerningly enough, can be summed up as "government formation by spite". Personal resentment towards several leading figures in the URL and bitter partisanship drove the PA to work with Talossa's political fringe -- and unsurprisingly, within only a few days, it had already fallen apart. The IDT leader's sympathies for alt-right agitator Nick Fuentes became public knowledge, but after dissolving the coalition agreement after a mere four days, the PA decided working with the IDT to nominate a Seneschal was still somehow better than working across the aisle, and a confidence-and-supply deal was formed.

To be clear, this isn't actually criticism of the IDT's leader and sole member. His views are certainly those we disagree with, but we respect and defend his right to them nonetheless. He is simply a very religious, very conservative young man, lacking in experience. The problem arose when the Baron and his party let their dislike for the URL's members get in the way of making the right decision, and that left "work with an alt-right teenager" as the only option they would consider. Talossa deserves a Government that behaves pragmatically, putting aside personal grievances to serve the country. A URL Government will treat a PA Opposition with the respect and professionalism that was lacking when the tables were turned.

Poor judgment has also been seen when the Government has evaluated someone's fit for a given role. Two big examples occurred in this term. The first regards the Baron's appointment of an Attorney General. Tric'hard Lenxheir is someone I think had shown potential. He is someone I have encouraged to be nicer to himself, instead of constantly putting himself down. I harbor no ill will towards him. These things do not eliminate concerns over whether or not he is suitable as the Government's legal counsel. He is not an attorney, and is therefore unable to provide the legal advice that the A-X is charged with providing by statute. He is quite literally unqualified to perform the main function of the office he held. One wonders if a more suitable candidate would have been available in the talent pool, if the incumbent Government had not been formed out of spite. On top of this, the circumstances of his renunciation are worth mentioning. S:reu Lenxheir renounced his citizenship in solidarity with an unrepentant sexual harasser. These are the sorts of principles welcome in the Baron's government? A URL Government will consider qualifications when forming the Cabinet; appointments made purely for political purposes tend to lead to tasks being done poorly, or simply not being done at all.

Speaking of the unrepentant sexual harasser, he's the other major example of this Government's bizarre and concerning personnel decisions. The Minister of Foreign Affairs named S:reu Tzaracomprada as an Information Liaison to multiple other micronations during the term. When questioned on this, Minister Briga claimed that these postings, made under the authority and direction of a government Ministry, were ... somehow not government positions. He told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears -- but that does not change that he gave multiple jobs to an individual that even the Seneschal has shunned. A URL Government will consider character when forming a Cabinet as well as when staffing Ministries for various duties; we will continue in our promise to refuse employment to those who exhibit chronically antisocial behavior.

We'll be back with more of our 62nd Cosă recap in the coming days. We'll also start getting into our more upbeat 63rd Cosă program. Stay tuned!

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Anyone out there looking for a TL;DR: the Prog minority government made some bad calls due to excessive partisan antipathy, which led to them bring less-qualified people into posts of responsibility. The next Union-led government will strive to put policy and competence over "team sports".

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Failed Promises

In the lead-up to the last election, the now-Seneschal described his party's promises as "ludicrous". Unfortunately, a word defined as "laughable, ridiculous" has ended up being a more accurate assessment than the Baron would probably prefer.

Immigration: As we've touched on before, the Baron and his party chose to make immigration the big issue of the last election, but it's not an issue they've succeeded with. The outgoing Government has not managed to grow the country. They have welcomed fewer immigrants than the previous Government, and while there have been more applicants, this means the percent of successful applications has been cut in half. The government's assumption that "more applicants = more citizens" has been proven false. The big reason for this is that they are focused only on "making the number go up" -- and they've not succeeded. We have previously commented on the limitations of the outgoing Seneschal's fixation on "management by statistics". We are now seeing those limitations demonstrated in real time. The URL, on the other hand, knows that recruiting the right citizens is more important in the long run than how many we can get in one term. Trying to target the kinds of people who are already interested in the sorts of things Talossa can provide will result in people sticking around and being active instead of immigrating and lapsing out as quickly as possible. Immigration shouldn't have to be about recuperating our losses. It should be about actually growing the country. The URL will prioritize recruiting citizens with an interest in political simulators, among other still-ignored sources.

Transparency in Government: Another big issue in the last election was the Public Process Act. After the URL pointed out that the bill as originally written had no enforcement mechanism, we were able to get one added when the new Cosă was seated. The PPA 2.0 passed in January. It is now August. Seven months on, the Baron's government has not yet begun to follow their own flagship piece of legislation. The Leader of the Opposition is now legally required to have a view to immigration applications. The Leader of the Opposition does not have that view. So much for transparency. A URL government can be trusted to actually follow the Kingdom's laws.

Improving Talossan Infrastructure: Exactly zero of the proposals in this thread have come to fruition.

"Cutting Red Tape": Their solution to this was to propose reducing the number of individuals in the Government that are accountable to the Ziu. We made sure that oversight stayed in place. The country deserves a government that is held accountable for their actions.

Regardless of the merits of their proposals or how they may try to spin the situation, the outgoing Government has failed to deliver on their promised agenda in this last term. Their "one-man band" problem has only worsened since then. As time goes on, the reason becomes more painfully obvious to the rest of the country: this Government has largely been one individual, clearly overworked, trying to drag his Cabinet forward. The Baron's situation is unenviable at best, but it goes back to what we've said before: government should be a team, not one person. A team of people have a much better time achieving their goals, instead of spinning their wheels and having to inflate accomplishments.

A vote for the URL is a vote for Government By A Team.