A REASON FOR REFORM

[Caranthir_ 2533]

A REASON FOR REFORM

Authored by Amadeus Ashford d’Aryn, Ph.D SSE

Published and circulated by the Imperial Everardine College

 

PRELUDE

It has been almost three decades since the publication of the Edict of Establishment, which constituted for the formation of two legislative houses to act as a branch of governance in our Holy Orenian Empire. 

 

The Imperial Senate has since proven to us all that it is perfectly capable of rising to the most difficult of challenges, and the most arduous of tasks. Even through wartime, when all seemed to be against us, the Imperial Senate stood firm against the rising tide - the stalwart seawall to which we can all call ourselves proud to serve, and proud to participate in. Never before in recorded history has any single social or political institution acted as decisively, and with such vitality as OUR Senate does. 

 

The purpose of our legislative body is to legislate, and legislate it certainly does. The efficiency with which the Senate passed numerous bills in short spaces of time sings its praises well in itself. However, an increasingly strong reason for wholesale reformation of our electoral system has swept our nation in the past saint’s week: the dissolution of Curon. Therefore, I argue that simple boundary reform will not ensure that each citizen of the Empire has a vote of similar value. 

 

THE PROBLEM FOR US ALL

Since the Edict of Establishment, we in the empire have witnessed the almost worrying charge of progress - most notably in our capital. Old traditions and feudal tenants have been replaced by an extreme wave of modernisation in which other parts of our land have struggled to catch up. Not only have they failed at the task of modernising their own communities, but they have outright rejected it. This is a problem of great magnitude facing our nation in the present era. Our main challenge now is not how we react to external enemies, but how we coalesce around that which makes us Orenian to fight off those who would be willingly prepared or disposed to be an internal one.

 

The most obvious problem that the Senate now faces is a shortfall of seats to make a majority meaningful or even possible. On the barebones technicality of it, the current makeup of the Imperial Senate seems untenable in both the short and long term. It will not work; it cannot work; it must not work. Our constitutional processes - indeed, our rights - are left to drift if we accept our current state for what it is. It is time for us to have a broader look as to how we conduct the business of government and of legislation in our nation. Our representatives cry for it, our people demand it, and I am afraid of what will happen if we ignore it. There must be change if we are to succeed as a nation. I believe there is now case for radical reform of our institutions, and for a review into the internal relationships between all the governments of the Holy Orenian Empire.

 

There exist ten large issues:

 

1.  What can be done to improve the effectiveness of our legislative body in the Imperial Senate?

2.  What should the relationship look like between the legislative body and the executive government?

3.  What should the relationship between vassal states and the government look like?

4.  Is the devolution of autonomy to the vassal states working as well as it possibly could?

5.  How could the structure of the executive government be reshaped to better understand the needs of the people and indeed their wants?

6.  Is there a case for further transparency into the decisions of the executive government?

7.  Is there a case for new arrangements to be made as to the accountability of the ministries overseeing the work of government?

8.  What changes need to be made in vassal government? Likewise, how large should its role be in military, economic and legal arrangements?

9.  Is there a case for major government decisions to be made on the consent of the people of Oren? 

10.  Lastly, what can be done to increase participation and decrease voter apathy? Is there a case for compulsory civic participation?

 

 

Turnout, whilst historically strong in the metropolitan Helena, falters abysmally in the various provinces in the empire that vote. I should point out now, that by no means do I intend to say that the elections of Reza for instance are lacklustre, only that they receive extreme discrepancies between the rotating election cycles, which will be elaborated further below. The reason for this generally poor turn-out is an apathy to the laws and indeed the governance of the wider imperial context. Furthermore, elections lack serious competition and indeed a candidate is usually backed by the theoretical power of the state in which they reside. Such endorsed candidates for the Imperial Senate which act as ‘their person’ in Novellen lead to poor civic participation, and are therefore unrepresentative of the true opinions of the population. Sir Terrence May and Viviaca Rutledge, whilst undoubtedly excellent legislators and frantically passionate about their respective communities, are a good example of this. Both held their positions for an unforgivingly long amount of time, which perhaps evidences the argument held above. It would be remiss of me to not to mention that there are occasionally competitive races in the provinces, however we see this usually to be the ‘junior’ race, in which secondary figures run. Apathy hurts our constitutional process; it does not produce fresh blood or effectively reflect the vastly changing opinions - especially in the last few years - that we have seen arise in our empire. When a man remains in his elected position during a period of completely polar contexts, it means that either the man is changing his views to be elected, or that elections are simply not contested well enough. Neither of these situations are helpful.

 

Our national infrastructure is as such that we could be fully capable of levelling up our efforts at national elections, however we refuse to. We refuse progress, and with it we refuse our own prosperity. In rejecting unstoppable modernity, we commit to ourselves an action as self-destructive as Joseph of Marna claiming the crown of Oren, thereby irking those who had no previous quarrel with him and his war for justice. The situation we face is comparable in this way: that we hinder our chances of long-lasting success with our own stubbornness and our destructive conceitedness.

 

Simply put, we face now an obstacle that absurdly self-destructive as it is self-imposed. A rope that is knotted too tight and with such complexity as for it to be impossible to untie may be seen by lesser men as a challenge too difficult. The finest minds of all and the most learned of scholars may work within the established parameters to attempt to untie this knot, but they will find their attempts to be made in vain. It is those who would happily draw out their sword and cut the rope in two who carry the torch of progress.

 

THE REASON FOR US ALL

We live, at the time of writing, in the space between representative democracy and pragmatic authoritarianism. In respect to this, it is important that we recognise what it truly means to be an Orenian. We all participate in a wider imperial project. A project that has before stood the test of time, but has ultimately failed due to its inability to connect fully with the wishes of its people, and to balance the interests of competing factions. Technocracy is not necessarily a bad thing: it works to better promote the efficiency of the state and to carry out His Imperial Majesty’s wishes, and that of the executive government that acts in his interests. The current problem, however, is that technocrats exist at the heart of our legislature. They act as government agents, rather than representatives to the people. Technocrats can only tell us how we should get to a place, not where we should be going. Technocracy is unhealthy for the empire when oversaturated. That is why moving forward, we must strive to create more competitive elections, in which seats are distributed on a national level rather than into trusted and efficient hands. For the efficient hands reside with the technocrats: the plumbers of this world. But oftimes you will find that when one’s plumbing goes wrong, the very people which will offer to fix it already have their marks left over the plumbing. Competence does not run parallel to success, some of the most competent of people can sometimes lack vision. The idea of civic participation, democracy if you will, works when people disagree and incompetence is as commonplace as actual legislation. Democracy is tiresome, it is self-deceiving, clumsy, reckless, and fatally flawed. Democracy, however, is best when it fails. Democracy is better off remaining clumsy and reckless and inefficient, otherwise we would already have our liberties taken away from us and our rights quashed. 

 

For this reason, and in my view, our focus should be on expanding civic participation to all people. National elections will foster a unity that cannot be created through constituent interests, or through self-serving legislation to benefit specific regions. Legislators must represent the entirety of the empire, or none of it. The way forward is as follows: a list of candidates from parties to be elected on by every citizen of Oren in one. A citizen of Helena, Haense, Kaedrin will not be voting for their local representative, they will be voting for the representatives of all of Oren. It will not work smoothly, though nothing ever does. Considerable complaints of inefficiency will be made, as will accusations of greed and corruption. But this is just as well, for a technocrat's dream world is not one I wish to ever live in. Our prosperity and unity is held back only by our petty feuds and disagreements over names, subcultures and titles. To be Imperials, one and all, this is my dream.

 

CONCLUSIONS

Just like the knot, we must cut through false and misleading fallacies to see what is truly right and prosperous for our empire going forward. The current system that we have, whilst grantedly efficient, does not guarantee adequate rights and powers that the Orenian population ought to hold. The electoral system now ironically reflects the Imperial Parliament of the Empire of Man in that only three constituencies of the empire are given the right to participate in our constitution. The system is not the sickness, but it is the symptom: putting it back in its box will not solve the underlying issues at stake. Opposing parties and national elections and favouring an expansion of seats in the current constituencies only prolongs the disease. It forsakes progress, it rejects modernity, and it rejects prosperity. 

 

Oren is for all of its citizens, not just the people of Helena. Oren is the bastion of human progress and evolution. It is a nation of which we can all be proud to call our own. It is a nation that we must defend like nothing else: otherwise we fall into the darkness of the abyss.

Humbly,

An Orenian.

[MunaZaldrizoti 8037]

Lydia d’Aryn lauds her brother with praise, having aided in checking over his writings before this publication!

[BenevolentManacles 2232]

John applauds this man reasoned criticism from his study in Selm’s library. He turns to his grandson Edward, “Why do you not write like this man!”

[bungo 3965]

Lord Pompourelia reads over the essay within his study in Novellen while indulging on his second breakfast. He begins a dialogue with the maid cleaning the study.

 

Have you read this essay, this Reason for Reform? Ah what have you, you likely do not read. However I shall explain it to you, as best as my genteel nature can describe. You see, this essay here brings forth the Old Josephite thought of the Imperial Subject and Imperial Identity, of which I am an adherent. You see, the Empire is no longer a single personage, no longer bound to the shackles and whims of one man. The Empire is now something more, an idea of which all of us can partake in. Whether highborn as myself, or lowborn as yourself, we are both Imperial subjects and this is our Empire, and for that reason I beseech you to vote.

[Drew2_dude 2636]

Sigmar grumbles as he reads. “the only ‘reform’ they speak of is a reform of rigging elections! the right of the people to choose proper representation is once again infringed upon by pompous pricks. like a wigged imperial egomaniac who has no love for the lifestyle of a Haensemen or knows what a day of hard work looks like could properly represent them over one of their own people! the constant recycling of Helenian legislatures to rule supreme once more over people they’ve never met returns us to the state of the Empire of man, tyranny! to insinuate abolishing electorates is nonsense, I’ll have no more of this pigshite!”