The Region That Has No Big BanksBoard

I love manifestos, and the satisfaction from making a campaign promise then actually achieving said promise. Notably it forces you to set out a vision, and (supposedly) helps to hold you accountable to the electorate. This was something I quickly recognised whilst I was PM. Put simply, election promises are a double edged sword … i.e you have to deliver it, or face potentially an opposing candidate or citizen noticing you didn’t deliver your objectives. In my campaign for Deputy Prime Minister, (my first regional election campaign) I set out three promises; Regular Regional Communication, creation of a Liberation team and revamping regional parliament. These were my main focuses, and they were successfully delivered, which I used in my next election campaign to prove to the electorate that I was a qualified candidate. In my PM campaign, I set out five promises, only 3 of which were properly delivered in my opinion. Not delivering a new regional constitution being one of the notable undelivered promises.

In my first term as PM, I had an ambitious manifesto, and passing a new constitution is difficult in an environment where there was little interest from region members to help. But ultimately I made a promise and didn’t deliver it, which has always been a frustration of mine and a blemish on my term as PM. However, with a changing regional environment it is difficult to develop a manifesto and often these are just ideas that pop into your head… I believe lots of campaign dispatches feel ‘quick and dirty’ i.e these have been pulled together last minute to tick a box, rather than making well thought through plans. Some of our greatest innovations in NBB didn’t come specifically from election promises (i.e Summerfest, RP events) and often ideas when forced on the campaign trail, may sometimes not be as well thought through. In the next two terms as PM, I stopped making campaign promises, this was for multiple reasons but mainly because I was a popular candidate and had demonstrated that I would be active in the region, I wouldn’t gain an electoral advantage from making more promises, and it would potentially tie me in to deliver those objectives.

In Wash Feds, PM campaign, promises didn’t make a comeback, unsurprising as Wash Fed stood on a status quo style approach. Whereas, in the DPM race Mjau as did make four promises but they were less specific i.e I will be friendly to all, rid our region of elitism and bias etc. which could be argued are more qualitative. But it’s worth noting that, there is some advantage to the lesser known candidate making promises, as you can learn more about them, this was important with Mjau, as he was somewhat an unknown quantity within the region. These promises very much resonated with the electorate, specifically RP players who felt the regional government was managing RP in favour of longer term residents.

In the May 2024 elections campaign promises came back with avengeance, with all successful candidates; including Mjau, Western Arba Fir and The Kaverian, making promises. Mjau specifically made 7 promises, outlining an ambitious agenda. Lots of these promises were delivered i.e revive DA and Defense or make the region easier for newer nations (with a 14 day citizenship requirement). It has to be said that Mjau did benefit from ATG being extremely active in the DA realm helping to deliver many of his promises. Some promises like ‘open the discussion of cabinet’ ‘shift power from the executive branch’ or ‘make the region more accepting of newer nations’ probably weren’t delivered as intended in my opinion. The problem with all of these promises, as it tied Mjau into having to achieve a lot in his campaign, and there’s no doubt this caused difficulties as we all had an expectation of a highly active Mjau premiership, whereas we saw more of the same with a Wash Fed status quo style approach in reality. I also want to mention The Kaverians campaign for speaker where he made 16 promises in the May 2024 elections. Again, this was certainly ambitious and arguably only got around half of them were delivered, here again lies the problem of making too many promises is that it’s hard to deliver them and it’s also very hard to predict the future.

The May elections were the most hotly contested (and most interesting) in the region's history, they made for a great spectator support for the neutral’s and demonstrated the best and worst of the region. Yet it seems one lesson learnt from these elections was not to make numerous election promises. In our most recent elections, ATG opted for a more sensible approach outlining 4 policies which were more broad outlining the areas he would focus on in government. Objectives like “Focus on policies, not politics.” and “Maintain our government's stability” are less specific but also are much easier to deliver, allowing ATG some flexibility to govern how he sees fit but also aligning with his other objectives like strengthening foreign affairs. It seems more strategic campaign promises are important for a prospective PM candidate, as it is really hard to predict what is going to happen for the next 4 months. For example, in my recent interview in the TSR I talked about how joining the InterLeft was more by luck than anything else, we ticked off a manifesto commitment on Inter-regional alliances because another region reached out to us, (by luck, rather than design). If the promise was focused on foreign affairs then it would have been easier to deliver as FA is broad whether joining an inter-regional alliance is difficult.

So what?

If you want to make a tangible campaign promise be sure you can deliver it, if you have less specific ideas then make more strategic objectives which show the electorate the areas which will be your focus whilst in government. If you are a newer nation, and the underdog then making promises which are tangible will be beneficial, because it allows the region to get some understanding of what you will do in power, this was shown as we saw Syrasia get elected with some clear campaign promises, and allowed him to beat Gine Caruttiva, who was the more well known candidate having run Western Arba Fir very close in the previous elections. But newer nations should of course be cautious with making too many promises, as there will be an expectation these are delivered. Things are made slightly easier for the more well known candidates who are able to rely on more strategic objectives as their experience and previous record in government builds a level of trust with the electorate.

I believe this has quite a lot of relevance to The New Way party and the direction I see us taking in the future. If the party focuses more on helping the region improve, increasing democratic participation through parliament and coaching newer nations on how to write bills, this will be more beneficial to the future of the region. Rather than a political party which has loads of specific tangible ideas for the region's future, we should focus on taking individuals' ideas and making them a reality, whether that be helping them write a bill, lobbying the regional government or raising a petition to the regional government. We as a political party need to focus more strategically and focus on becoming a vehicle for change and improvement rather than promising a buffet of policy suggestions.

As a member of the Roleplay Committee, I’m here to share the progress we've made in developing the map roleplay for our region. I've drawn borders and distributed resources within borders; a list of resources will be released soon. My next goal is coming up with a fair way to distribute states, making sure that the process doesn't discriminate.

Alongside this, I’m focused on finalizing and amending our roleplay rules and giving the main dispatches a final polish. I’m ready to make our roleplay great again, and I want to thank everyone for still having patience after so long - we're in the final stretch!