February 2022 Cabinet election
The February 2022 Cabinet election was an election held in the South Pacific from 1‒10 February 2022 to elect new Cabinet ministers. Six positions were up for election, namely that of the Minister of Culture, Minister of Defence, Minister of Engagement, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Media, as well as the Prime Minister of the South Pacific.
Background
Cabinet elections are scheduled regularly, taking place every four months. According to the Elections Act, a Cabinet election would have to take place on February 1st, 2022.
Electoral System
Each position in the Cabinet is elected independently from one another using the Instant-Runoff voting system. In each race, a voter ranks as many of the standing candidates as they wish in descending order of preference; the worst-performing candidates are eliminated from the tally one after another and the votes for them get re-distributed according to the voters' preferences until a candidate has attained an absolute majority of votes.
The election would begin with a four-day candidacy declarations period. Concurrently, the campaigning period would run, lasting for six days. At its conclusion, three days of voting would begin, after which the Election Commissioner would proclaim the results.
A day prior to the opening of nominations, an amendment to the Elections Act was passed, rewording the section describing Instant-Runoff voting.[1] However, this amendment effectively didn't affect the ballot counting process, instead simply condensing its phrasing.
Prime Minister
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2022 Prime Minister election was contested by incumbent HumanSanity and their predecessor, Witchcraft and Sorcery. Nominations were declined by Sandaoguo, Roavin, and Purple Hyacinth; Rebeltopia, Amerion, Jay Coop, and Nakari never responded to their nominations.[2]
Candidates
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
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HumanSanity | Prime Minister of the South Pacific (since October 2021) Other offices |
Continued Growth[3] | |
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Witchcraft and Sorcery | General of the South Pacific Special Forces (since August 2021) Other offices |
Here we go again...[4] | |
Campaigns
HumanSanity campaigned on a platform of continuing their work from the concluding term while taking a more authoritative approach to the Prime Minister's role within the Cabinet. They highlighted a number of points they believed went well in the term, namely transparency and stability, and explained the benefits to their preferred hands-on style of being Prime Minister in achieving those things. Furthermore, HumanSanity presented a brief overview of their visions for each of the ministries and the Office of World Assembly Legislation in addition to general Cabinet-wide goals for the upcoming term.[3]
The campaign of Witchcraft and Sorcery likewise cited his previous term as Prime Minister as well as experience from other Ministerial positions. Unlike HumanSanity, he argued for a more manager-like leadership of the Prime Minister, mostly aiding the individual Cabinet ministers in achieving their campaign promises and helping the Cabinet as a whole stick together. Nonetheless, he still listed a number of objectives he'd like each Ministry to complete, which were generally similar to those of HumanSanity.[4]
A debate was held on February 3rd between the two, hosted by the South Pacific Independent News Network.[5]
Minister of Culture
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2022 Minister of Culture election was a race between Eshialand and Murelia. HumanSanity, Purple Hyacinth, and Doge Land declined their nominations.[2]
Candidates
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Eshialand | Legislator of the South Pacific (since April 2021) Other offices
Senior Staff in the Ministry of Culture |
A Bright Future[6] | |
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Murelia | Legislator of the South Pacific (since July 2021) Other offices
Ambassador to Spiritus and the East Pacific |
Murelia for MoC[7] | |
Campaigns
Eshialand's campaign largely consisted of an analysis of the current term's games and events, observing the decline in attendance after the new role-specific ping system was introduced and describing possible solutions to further community engagement to tackle this issue. This mostly entailed collaboration with the Ministry of Engagement to properly "hype up" MoC's weekly games as well as trying to organize larger events, and propping all of this up with more Voice Chat activity. He furthermore expressed a desire to look into hosting interregional events in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to further community engagement. Eshialand conceded lacking knowledge about the South Pacific's roleplay community, but promised to nonetheless work with them throughout the term.[6]
Murelia similarly campaigned to organize more interregional events to the enjoyment of participants as well as South Pacifican publicity. He also talked about the weekly games introduced by incumbent Doge Land, but focused criticism on their timing, lamenting the time zone differences making it impossible for him and likely others to attend some of them; the proposed solution was to spread and circulate the times for all the events, and a dedicated Discord channel should help with publicity and attracting more participants. Murelia lastly suggested further engagement with the roleplay community of TSP by explicitly extending event invitations to the dedicated RP servers, since the associated RP events would be of great interest to them, too.[7]
On February 3rd, the South Pacific Independent News Network hosted a debate between the two.[5]
Minister of Defence
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2021 Minister of Defence election only had a single candidate ‒ incumbent Moon ‒ running for office. HumanSanity, Roavin, Pronoun, Witchcraft and Sorcery, Belschaft, and Wizard Ferret declined their nominations.[2]
Candidate
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Moon | Minister of Defence of the South Pacific (since November 2021) Other offices
Officer of the South Pacific Special Forces Senior Staff in the Ministry of Media Ambassador to the West Pacific and 10000 Islands |
Moonister of Defense II[8] | |
Campaign
The campaign of Moon highlighted the increasingly active SPSF membership, including Civilian recruitment for important liberations as well as the growing numbers of the Tidal Force, and thanked his Generals and Prime Minister HumanSanity for providing the support necessary for these achievements. He pledged to advance the Tidal Force more in the coming term, and increase integration efforts for new SPSF members to avoid overwhelming them with all the details about R/D. Lastly, Moon explained his plans for more public appearances of the Ministry, lauding HumanSanity's bi-weekly Cabinet updates and promising to revive monthly reports from the MoD itself in addition to continuing the special reports published about large-scale operations in the last term.[8]
Moon was interviewed by the South Pacific Independent News Network on February 4th.[5]
Minister of Engagement
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2022 Minister of Engagement election saw Jebediah challenge incumbent Purple Hyacinth. Pronoun and Griffindor declined their nominations; USoVietnam and Evinea neither accepted nor declined their nominations in time.[2]
Candidates
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Purple Hyacinth | Minister of Engagement of the South Pacific (since December 2021) Other offices
Senior Staff in the Ministry of Culture Senior Staff in the Ministry of Media OWL Senior Staff Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs |
Building on our Foundation[9] | |
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Jebediah | Legislator of the South Pacific (since January 2022) |
Vote Jeb for MoE[10] | |
Campaigns
Purple Hyacinth primarily campaigned on continuing and completing the projects she had just over a month ago been elected for. On MoE-internal affairs, she expressed a desire to achieve better long-term sustainability of projects, and to that end promised giving MoE staffers extensive independence in leading individual projects while still making sure that term goals are met ‒ and re-shuffling assignments if needed ‒ and advancing staff integration efforts. She provided a list of term goals for each of the Ministry's specialized teams as well as a number of special projects to pursue, namely a cross-endorsement event, reworking the on-site welcome dispatches, and helping Delegate-elect Penguin write a new welcome telegram for the region.[9]
A large part of Jebediah's campaign focused on the wiki project, desiring to establish a clear-cut structure supported by guides to make it more accessible to newer editors; for this, they presented a detailed step-by-step plan. Furthermore, the wiki's on-site counterpart, the MoE's Dispatch service, would be reworked into a more concise, newbie-friendly style with less unnecessary information. They also presented some ideas for how the Ministry would collaborate with other Ministries, mainly concerning possible help for recruiting players into the Ministries, but also providing a plan for if the Ministry of Media would get abolished under a Minister Belschaft. Jebediah ended their campaign with talking about possible solutions for better region-wide recruitment and integration in light of the upcoming Frontier/Stronghold NationStates update.[10]
The South Pacific Independent News Network hosted a debate between the two on February 5th.[5]
Minister of Foreign Affairs
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2022 Minister of Foreign Affairs election was contested by incumbent Roavin and Sandaoguo. Nominations were declined by Moon and Wizard Ferret, while Jay Coop and Qaz didn't respond to theirs.[2]
Candidates
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Roavin | Minister of Foreign Affairs of the South Pacific (since October 2021) Other offices
Associate Justice of the High Court General of the South Pacific Special Forces Member of the Legislator Committee |
Plain FAcking awesome[11] | |
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Sandaoguo | Member of the Council on Regional Security (since December 2016) Other offices |
Sandaoguo Wins MoFA Election![12] | |
Campaigns
Roavin's campaign started with a look back on the past term's achievements, such as the new Pact of the Centre of the Earth with Balder and general talks with a number of regions, for which furthermore the respective TSPedia pages were polished. Goals for the coming term were stated to be conducting those talks with further regions, improving ambassador recruitment and internal integration, and working with the Ministry of Media to produce regular foreign reports. Roavin further hinted at a number of in-the-works FA projects that would likely be released in the next term, and finished the campaign with an outline of general policy views, especially highlighting TSP's democratic and defender values.[11]
Sandaoguo put the main focus of his campaign on his non-compromising defender ideology, stating that a Minister of Foreign Affairs had to know how to navigate the interregional landscape for the long-term benefit. He criticized that recently, TSP's FA objective had been to achieve short-term benefits and try to please everyone, citing his "hopeful scepticism" and indifference to his own reputation in the gameplay community as prime reasons for why he could abandon this policy line in favor of a more effective, principled FA agenda. Sandaoguo expressed a desire to add an actual military pact to the Partnership for Sovereignty and placing it at the core of any South Pacifican foreign strategy.[12]
The two participated in a debate hosted by the South Pacific Independent News Network on February 3rd.[5]
Minister of Media
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| Registered | 68 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 58.82% | |||||||||||||||
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The February 2022 Minister of Media election was a race between Belschaft campaigning to abolish the Ministry and Wizard Ferret wanting to save it. Purple Hyacinth, Murelia, and BlockBuster2K43 declined their nominations, while Not Austria, Rebeltopia, Floptop, and Ike never responded.[2]
Candidates
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Belschaft | Associate Justice of the High Court (since May 2018) |
Vote for Belschaft and Abolish the Ministry of Media![13] | |
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Wizard Ferret | Legislator of the South Pacific (since January 2022) Other offices
Ambassador to The League |
Magic may be required to save the Ministry of Media - enter Wizard Ferret[14] | |
Campaigns
Belschaft's campaign was his third attempt at being elected on a platform of wholly abolishing the Ministry of Media. He cited low ‒ although increased ‒ publication activity as well as a perceived complete redundancy of the Ministry as his reasons, and explained that any player interested in writing news articles could easily do so without the Ministry, which he believed to simply add layers of unnecessary bureaucracy. He further promised to release all assets of the Ministry, such as graphics and guides, to the public for free.[13]
Wizard Ferret campaigned mostly to present the voters with an alternative to the Ministry's abolition, but also expressed excitement at the idea of running a newspaper. Among their suggestions for getting the Ministry off the ground again were implementing a regular publication schedule, furthering recruitment and integration efforts by transforming the Ministry culture into a newspaper writing room-like atmosphere, and changing up the general feeling of articles as well as expanding the areas of NS covered by them.[14]
A debate between the two was held on February 6th, hosted by the South Pacific Independent News Network.[5]
Results
The election results were proclaimed by Election Commissioner Kris Kringle on February 10th, 2022, and will be certified on the 17th.[15] The elected Cabinet ministers will take their seats on the same day.
Prime Minister
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| ✓ HumanSanity | 35 | 87.5% |
| Witchcraft and Sorcery | 5 | 12.5% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 0 | 0% |
| Invalid ballots | 0 | 0% |
Minister of Culture
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| Eshialand | 22 | 56.41% |
| Murelia | 15 | 38.46% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 2 | 5.13% |
| Invalid ballots | 1 | 2.5% |
Minister of Defence
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| ✓ Moon | 39 | 97.5% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 1 | 2.5% |
| Invalid ballots | 0 | 0% |
Minister of Engagement
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| ✓ Purple Hyacinth | 35 | 89.74% |
| Jebediah | 4 | 10.26% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 0 | 0% |
| Invalid ballots | 1 | 2.5% |
Minister of Foreign Affairs
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| ✓ Roavin | 29 | 74.36% |
| Sandaoguo | 10 | 25.64% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 0 | 0% |
| Invalid ballots | 1 | 2.5% |
Minister of Media
| Results: First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively. | ||
| Candidate | First-Place Preferences | |
| Wizard Ferret | 23 | 58.97% |
| Belschaft | 16 | 41.03% |
| Re-Open Nominations | 0 | 0% |
| Invalid ballots | 1 | 2.5% |
References
- ↑ CoA anjo (31 Jan '22): Final Result (A2201.08). Assembly of the South Pacific. Retrieved 10 Feb '22.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 EC Kris Kringle (31 Jan '22): Declarations of Candidacy. Retrieved 10 Feb '22.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 HumanSanity (1 Feb '22): HumanSanity for Prime Minister: Continued Growth. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Witchcraft and Sorcery (3 Feb '22): WS4PM: Here we go again... Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 James Halpert (7 Feb '22): [Election Coverage] February 2022 Cabinet Election Debate Series. South Pacific Independent News Network. Retrieved 7 Feb '22.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Eshialand (1 Feb '22): Eshia for MoC!. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Murelia (2 Feb '22): Murelia for MoC. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Moon (3 Feb '22): Moonister of Defense II. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Purple Hyacinth (5 Feb '22): Purple Hyacinth for MoE: Building on our Foundation. Retrieved 5 Feb '22.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Jebediah (4 Feb '22): Vote for Jebediah/John!. Retrieved 5 Feb '22.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Roavin (2 Feb '22): RoFAvin 3.0: Plain FAcking awesome. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Sandaoguo (2 Feb '22): Breaking: Sandaoguo wins close election!. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Belschaft (2 Feb '22): Abolish the Ministry of Media - is third time the charm?. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Wizard Ferret (3 Feb '22): Magic may be required to save the Ministry of Media - enter Wizard Ferret. Retrieved 4 Feb '22.
- ↑ EC Kris Kringle (10 Feb '22): Proclamation of Results. Retrieved 10 Feb '22.