User Tools

Site Tools


offtopic:2008_detailed

Detailed History of the 2008 - 2009 Parliament of the Imperial Republic of AH.com

The August 6th Scandal

On August 6, 2008, scandal erupted when Ran Exilis (E) revealed that Susano, MP for and Chairman of the Federalist Federation of Federalists, had attempted convince him to defect to the FFF. The Evil Party was outraged and Prime Ministers Douglas (E) called for Susano's resignation: “I hereby ask the FFF member Susano to disavow his earlier comments and apologize to the Parliament for treachery. If he chooses the honorable path of resignation at this time, I'm sure Sargon will be perfectly willing to appoint a fellow FFF member to Susano's seat. Otherwise, other disciplinary actions might need to be taken.”

Susano (FFF) refused, defending his actions: “A MP changing parties may be called “backstabbing”, but it is a legitimate action in any democracy. Same for trying to persuade others to do so.” Vice President Midgard (E) pointed out that AH.commers did not vote for individual MPs for but the political parties and, therefore, an MP leaving his political party would have to resign his position and allow the party to appoint his replacement. Susano (FFF) responded: “That is - not so in any list system I know. Not in Germany, not in Italy (where that happens regularly), not in the Ukraine (where that caused a huge scandal - but was legal). I virtually dont know any proportional voting system where this would be the case. Parliament might CHANGE the laws as it is, but elected MPs are elected - whether via list or district is irrelevant.”

On August 23, Deputy Prime Minister Demosthenes announced he was opening an investigation into a number of “internal matters within parliament”, including the events of August 6th, inviting Pkmatrix (YSP) and Steffen (FFF) to join in the interest of impartiality.

Douglas' Resignation

On August 26, 2008 Prime Minister Douglas (E) tendered his resignation to a stunned Parliament, leaving Deputy Prime Minister Demosthenes to fill his position. On August 27, Demosthenes suggested LightInfa be given Douglas' seat in Parliament and TheDarkServant be appointed Deputy Prime Minister. On August 28, President Sargon agreed to LightInfa's appointment, but suggested that more senior members of the Evil Party be vetted for the Deputy PM position before TheDarkServant.

Text of Resignation

I hereby tender my resignations to the AH.com Parliament from the positions of Prime Minister and Member of Parliament. It gives me great pride to see how far my idea from the summer of 2006 has come, and how the AH.com Government is on the verge of great new things under the current Parliament, with its excellent work so far this term, and under the guidance of President Sargon. However, I know that it is time for me to move on. I am a stubborn person, and I cannot admit to supporting either an expansion of Parliament's size or a Landsraad, as that would limit the strength of the Parliament which I created to be large enough to be representative, yet small enough to be desirable to members for the rare privilege of serving AH.com in it. My stubbornness does not allow me to willfully carry out these parts of my current party's platform, and as I am head of Parliament as well as Electoral Officer, I can see that I am standing in the way of progress.

I would like to thank the loyal partisans of the Evil Party, who I have worked with for over a year to create the greatest political organization in AH.com's history. I would like to thank all of the members of Parliament who ran with the energy and the desire required to make Parliament a dynamic legislative body this term. I would like to thank President Sargon for his powerful and inspiring leadership in turning the AH.com Government into a bi-partisan organization dedicated to furthering the Board.

Most of all, however, I would like to thank the voters: the people who bothered to click on a poll every 12 months for the last 2+ years in order to make my dream of an AH.com Government a reality.

Before I make my exit from the Parliamentary Thread with which I entrust you, I have a few last requests:

1. That Demosthenes, currently Deputy Prime Minister, be welcomed as actual Prime Minister with open arms by all members of Parliament, in recognition of his particular service in publicizing and promoting the AH.com Government.

2. That a new member of Parliament be promptly selected in a manner which reflects the will of the people in the last election, and which does not lead to partisan strife at this point, after the elections.

3. That I be allowed to retain my position as Electoral Officer of AH.com, and that an Act of Parliament be passed to confirm me for a significant period of time in this capacity, which I have served in to the best of my abilities over these last few years.

and finally,

4. That Parliament continue to help AH.com in real, effective ways.

Thank you,

Douglas

Budget Crisis

On September 7, it was announced by Prime Minister Demosthenes that the Imperial Government would run out of money on September 13, at 2PM eastern US Time. This came amidst a draft budget being introduced and the Banking and Currency Act being voted upon.

Late night on September 7, the Banking and Currency Act received 8 yea votes and it was declared passed and moved on to President Sargon for formal passage. Plans were made at the end of the vote to hold more money/budget votes later in the week. On September 8, the loss of 300 Million Dollars was reported by Demosthenes, and several members moved a motion of no confidence and removal of him as Prime Minister.

The Budget Crisis eventually widened to the general Crisis of 2008, leading to the arrest of Demosthenes and the return of Douglas as temporary Prime Minister. As of January 31, 2009, Demosthenes remains an MP and Douglas is still acting Prime Minister.

Constitutional Convention

The idea to draft a constitution came about in the Crisis of 2008. Currently, AH.com lacks such a document, which is partly intentional due to the bad example Alternia set with their joke of a constitution and political system - the difference being that Alternia truly used it as method to run the site, whereas His Administratorness' Government holds no real power over the forums. When Acting President Midgard intervened to end the crisis, he made plans for such a convention to be part of his intervention. The idea received broad support by the AH.com politics public, who had been shocked by the events of the crisis. The new constitution was planned to codify many of the traditions and procedures used by His Administratorness' Government, thereby preventing anything like the Crisis of 2008 from happening again.

The 2008 AH.com Constitutional Convention was held from September 30, 2008 to November 19, 2008.

It was ultimately ended by the direct intervention of His Administratorness, Ian, who made clear he did not approve of the direction the government was heading. The constitution has since been abandoned.

Deadlock

On January 31, 2009, Pkmatrix (YSP) submitted the Krall-Pkmatrix Parliamentary Reform Bill, calling for Landsraad elections to be held on February 15. He called the Members of Parliament to return and vote on this issue, among several other pending bills. On February 1, Susano (FFF) questioned whether or not Parliament was, in fact, capable of passing any bills whatsoever following the Landsraad Act of 2008:

“Furthermore, I challenge the authority of this body. Bad enough that it is still running without new elections after the whole coup d'etat episode. But that is just bad taste and cheating of the electorate, not technically illegal. However, furthermore, under current law, Parliament cannot pass bills, as there is no Landsraad elected yet, as after all that body has been given co-legislative powers. What we need is either a bill, or a presidential decree, saying when Landsraad is to be elected - and nothing more.

“The Landsraad as institution has already been created, there just were no elections yet, so its not functional. It certainly was unwise to not have included election dates in the original bill, but oh well, cant do something about that anymore. However, I dont think election dates need extra bills from Parliament! Isnt Doug the official AH.com Election Leader? A decree by him should be enough.”

Pkmatrix (YSP) disagreed: “Until Landsraad elections are held, THERE IS NO LANDSRAAD. What the Landsraad Act did was call for the creation of an upper house, but until Parliament sets a date for elections that upper house does not, in fact, yet exist. What this bill will do is set a date for elections - following February 15, Parliament will be bicameral and will have to operate based upon what is outlined in the Landsraad Act. Until then, Parliament operates in the old way.”

Susano (FFF) was strongly against this interpretation: “That way Parliament could just ignore the Landraads Act! This is an usurpation of powers I strongly protest against!”

After the Krall-Pkmatrix Parliamentary Reform Bill failed to pass on February 7, Pkmatrix (YSP) relented and joined Susano's call for new elections.

On February 13, President Sargon announced that he had contacted the Electoral Officer, Douglas, “as the matter of elections concerns him,” and that “he should be here to make his views known on [the call for recall elections]”. On February 14, Douglas said “If you want to hold these elections, feel free to do so,”, but added that he would need to resign as Electoral Officer and Acting Prime Minister in the event of immediate recall elections.

See Also

offtopic/2008_detailed.txt · Last modified: 2019/03/29 15:13 by 127.0.0.1

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki