Novgorodian Druzhýna | Issue II | 16/05/2020

Look! I'm writing another one! I get to offend a whole new bunch of peeps!

Our lovely candidates this month that I simply can't wait to smear are, in a very particular order, Republic of Satherland, Eritei, and Anskerdank! Everyone go pingspam them to show your support!

I would note that there will not be the usual coverage of this election from The satherlandic Times, due to Sather's feeling such a publication would be unavoidably biased considering he is a candidate. I have therefore endeavoured to take its place for this election (though it is presumptuous to believe anything may come close to its immaculate perfection) as a hopefully mostly unbiased commentary on the candidates and election, contrary to my overtly biased stance in the previous issue of this publication. This is not my preferred format, as I much prefer slagging everyone off and telling peeps how they should vote, but given that the only other publication for this month is the AnskerDaily, which is written by one of the candidates and openly endorses one of the candidates (and though I do not doubt it is written in good faith, and aims to be unbiased, it is pretty much impossible for a candidate to write an unbiased report on an election in which they are running), I believe there is a necessity for a third party to cover this election from a neutral standpoint.

Boring bit where I explain what I'm talking about. Click here if you're new to this.

For those of you who are so uncultured that you don't know what I'm talking about (looking at youse, Drewites), the Commission is defined in the Act as being to "protect the regional government’s stability, and amend or correct various pieces of past legislation." The three members of the Commission also sit on the Moderation Commission, doling out justice according to the RMB Moderation Act, from their conference chambers in Eurocord. This second purpose is perhaps of greater import than the first: they are effectively judges, and it would not do to have judges who are incapable of being professional or serious. We already have enough problems with Feria-Alkaline being a member of ModComm.

So, as I did previously, I'll now move on to looking at each of the candidates individually. None of them have as of yet released campaign telegrams or dispatches (so far as I am aware), so I'll have to put out a separate dispatch for that. I'll link to that dispatch here once (and if) it's made. (No promises.)

Republic of Satherland

Sather, like this month's other candidates, has never held the office of Commissioner before, but has previously fought elections on behalf of his now-redundant party, ACE. Thus, we can see a (to be honest unflattering) image of Sather taking a place on the front line of European politics, in which he ranted constantly and complained loudly. That said, it is my firm belief that he has moved on from such past mistakes, and has more recently shown himself to be a vocal commentor on events in elections and modcom (I have no idea where that sentence was going don't judge me), and also a skilled writer of legislation, having recently written and passed the Due Process Act, which is to my knowledge the only European legislation not written by a member of the Commission or Cabinet.
My primary concern with Sather would be how suited to the Moderation Committee he would be, but I feel he has both enough decency and maturity that he wouldn't at all be a terrible choice.
A further look into Sather's legislative capabilities may be found by reading through the thread for his proposed WA proposal. I will not analyse this, as given the standard of legislation he has produced recently for the region, I do not believe it to be necessary. The thread in question may be found here.

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Eritei

Fortunately, I have more to say on this particular subject since last month.
Eritei's run for Commish a couple of times now. Last election, he dropped out half-way through to ensure St Scarlett's victory over Alienage, which although I would not encourage doing, was at least for legitimate political reasons.
Although not as significant on the European scene as previous members of the Commission, he would to my understanding be a fairly trustworthy 2DC, and would definitely be a suitable person to have on the moderation committee. I would not, however, expect great things from him with regard to legislation - certainly in comparison to Sather. On the other hand, we can see a single example of his legislative capabilities in his WA proposal, "Prisoner Voting Rights". It is not perfectly written, but one must bear in mind that it is a first draft, having never made it past that stage due to its conflicting with previous legislation mandating that "member nations [have] the liberty to legislate on the issue of enfranchisement for individuals under incarceration." From what can be seen in this, we are given a view of an author who has not yet achieved great levels of legislative experience - understandable given how early in Eritei's NS career it was written - but certainly this author could aid in the creation of such legislation - and, given the cooperative nature of the Commission, this is all that is required.
Altogether, Eritei is a solid candidate who (in my opinion) could be a solid 2DC.

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Anskerdank

Ansker ran for commish once before, in February - although he withdrew before voting began. Then, his campaign was based purely on creating "fun and creative polls", under the direction of the region - that being, he would take suggestions from the populace for poll ideas. He also promised "a more democratic Europe", which I believe also refers to this idea of the region gaining more control over what polls are put up. All in all, a perfectly harmless platform, but not one which goes into great depth. The manner of his withdrawal led me to believe he was not fully in-touch with regional affairs, and merely hopping onto bandwagons - but it should be remembered that this was several months ago, and much has changed since then.
Returning to the present, I believe Ansker has matured significantly, and an Ansker commissionership would not be as terrible as I believed it would be back in February. He has become more active within the region, in particular on Eurocord.
He has released a draft for a world assembly proposal, which may be found here. This thread dates from around the time of his previous commissionership campaign, and would seem to indicate someone who has very little experience with writing legislation, but who certainly has potential. (I will not venture into details on my personal misgivings with banning electric collars, as the proposal aims to do.)
My view on Ansker currently is much the same as my view on Alienage last election - that he has great potential, but is not ready. From what I have seen thus far, I would be hesitant before saying a moderation committee with Ansker on it would be ideal. Yet, I may well be proven wrong.

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It has been announced that there will be a debate hosted on Eurocord, then released in dispatch form by Ansker, featuring the three candidates. You may anticipate an analysis of that being linked to here following the event.
(Of course, such an analysis may not appear. Depends how much time I have. But you are welcome still to anticipate it, nonetheless.)

Writing Competition

The Home Office is doing something at last! Home Secretary Feria-Alkaline has announced a Writing Competition, asking nations to write a short story on the theme of Pandemic,
and send it to Imperium Anglorum. Hopefully everyone reading this has already heard of the Writing Competition
(especially given that Feria sent out a regional telegram), but a little extra prodding to get peeps to enter can't hurt :P

The dispatch containing all the information you could ever wish for regarding the competition may be found here.

The previous issue of the Novgorodian Druzhýna may be found here.