Delegate of the South Pacific
| Delegate of the South Pacific | |
|---|---|
 Flag of the South Pacific | |
| Style | Their excellency |
| Status | Active |
| Appointer | Direct election in a two-step process: 1. Approval voting 2. Two-round system |
| Term length | Six months, renewable |
| Constituting instrument | Charter of the South Pacific |
| Formation | 31 December 2002 |
| First holder | Bong Load |
The Delegate of the South Pacific is the head of state of the South Pacific and responsible for helping maintain the security of the region, promoting growth and activity, and serving as an advisor to the forumside government. The incumbent delegate is PenguinPies, who is 46th to serve in this position.
History
The office of the Delegate of the South Pacific used to be responsible for both government and the WA Delegation. However, on the 21st June 2016, the running of government was passed to the newly created role of the Prime Minister.
Duties
The Delegate of the South Pacific is responsible for maintaining order and security within the South Pacific, they are also responsible for promoting the South Pacific regionally and abroad. The delegate may occasionally have to appoint newly elected officials to their offices with the Government of the South Pacific, such as a newly elected Prime Minister.
Election
According to the Elections Act, the election of the Delegate takes place every January & July, thus the term length for the delegate is six months, with no term limits. The Delegate is elected in a multi-round process, with one round of voting held on the forums, and at least one held on-site. The candidacy declarations period wholly coincides with the campaigning period, lasting seven days.
Candidate Eligibility
In addition to the usual eligibility critera (such as having legislator status at the start of nominations and posting a campaign containing a truthful Conflict of Interest disclosure), candidates are required to not be banned from World Assembly membership on-site, as well as to hold a number of WA endorsements at least equal to 80% of the existing general endorsement cap (as a consequence, South Pacific Coral Guard members automatically qualify, as the endorsement cap orients itself by the least-endorsed SPCG member). This requirement was instituted to shorten any required transition period of the Delegacy.
Voting
Following the conclusion of the campaigning period, voting will commence.
First Round
The first round of voting is held on the regional forums, with all legislators that were admitted before the start of the election eligible to vote. The voting system in this round is majoritarian approval voting; each voter may approve of as many of the standing candidates as they wish, and the two candidates with the highest approval totals win positions as candidates in the second round. If there is a tie for advancing, all of those tied candidates advance, making it possible that more than two candidates stand in the second round. Should any theoretically advancing candidate have received less than 50% approval however, they don't advance, and instead the whole election procedure for that advancing position restarts.
Second Round
The second round of voting happens on-site via a week-long regional poll, and all native WA member nations of the South Pacific are eligible to participate. This round is conducted using the two-round system (called Majority Voting in the Elections Act to avoid confusion of the majority vote and its runoff with the two principal rounds of voting); each voter selects a single candidate they wish to vote for, and the candidate with the absolute majority of votes is the winner. If no candidate has received a majority ‒ as might happen in case more than two candidates have advanced to this round ‒ then a runoff between the top-two most-preferred candidates is held to determine the winner, with voters once again simply selecting their preferred candidate.
Transition Period and Inauguration
The winner of the second round is declared the Delegate-Elect. Until they have received the most endorsements in the region and thus take the on-site Delegate seat, they are simply tasked with gaining more endorsements to ensure a speedy transition. The outgoing Delegate will maintain their office until then and may still execute all the actions required from them by law (such as Border Control actions). Once the Delegate-Elect has attained the plurality of endorsements in the region and is awarded the Delegate seat by NationStates, they are considered formally inaugurated.