The Speakership Race
Dissolution of the UCCL
"Spend, Spend, Spend"
The Provincial Merging Debate
The VP race heats up

---

The Speakership Race

Most elections seem to end without drama. Well, that didn't happen this time. After the Chamber elections that left both coalitions without a majority, the race for the Chamber Speaker became a dramatic campaign to determine the path the Chamber will take for six months.

Mike Jones, the Socialist Party nominee, played the non-partisan figure who wanted to introduce reforms in the way the Chamber did its business; Pete Hickey, the incumbent, favored the status quo and figured apathy was more important than Chamber reform.

In the end, the Deputies favored Chamber reform over the status quo, and non-partisanship over the current situation.

Was it a vote for Socialism? Not really. It was a vote for non-partisanship in the Speaker's seat.

As a result of this election, the PFP found that its coalition partners (and its minority right-wing) wouldn't always support them, as conservatives and Laborites backed the Socialist candidate. This is freeing up the political arena and throws the Vice-Presidential race wide open.

Well, the dynamics of our political system has changed dramatically. With rumors (and finally confirmation) about a Lab-LibDem merger abound, and the growing pressure on the Socialist Party to become more independent of Rosario, the UCCL founder (and SP floor leader and VP candidate), Mike Key, moved to dissolve the UCCL. The reason for this decision was to allow for more independent, issue by issue, coalitons with the other parties, because they felt to constrained by the polarized coalitonal politics. This will allow for more legislation to be explored this session, as the concern won't be on how partisan someone can be, but how cross-partisan the legislation can be.

A debate has begun on the President's budget and taxation policies. Prior to leaving, Rosario urged the Chamber to not pass the President's tax cuts but instead vote for radically increased spending because of alleged problems with the poor and public education.

Meanwhile, others weren't concerned of the tax cuts, but by how much. Some were concerned about the magnitude of the income tax cuts; others were concerned about the elimination of the export and national luxury taxes. Conservatives and Libertarians wanted a sales tax, elimination of tariffs, and cuts in the capital-gains taxes. Republicans wanted a deduction for individual retirement accounts like the Roth IRA.

Also, people were concerned over the previous budget's allocation for defense. The President said it wasn't his fault proper auditing of the budget wasn't done, nor did the Chamber object to the budget.

Instead, however, he is urging the Chamber to debate and amend the budget in one meeting, and then pass the budget in a second meeting. He says this will give the Chamber more chances to change the budget to their liking without complaining after the fact.

Another debate regards the attempt to improve competition and reduce the vacancies in the provincial government. The President urged support of a plan sponsored by the CWP to allow for the reduction of provinces on the notion that it will reduce vacancies and improve competition.

However, critics pointed out that it would dilute the power of the various parties and snuff out the power of the right-wing. The President then pulled support in favor of a referendum on the concept. Also, the PFP favors dividing the nation into two classes: active and inactive citizens. If a province has less than 5 active citizens, their proposal said, then the province would be demoted to a territory for at least three months. The President criticized the plan as too bureacratic and damaging to provincial autonomy.

We'll see how this debate plays out.

Three candidates. The chance to be VP to the Founding Father of Cyberia. And the campaign hasn't even started yet.

Mike Key, of the SP, is a three-term Deputy and a successful journalist. His positives include fairness, willingness to compromise, competence with HTML, and similar beliefs in foreign policy as the incumbent President. His negatives is that he is the front-runner, and thus his numbers can most surely go south if the other candidates spark up their campaign. The recent poll gave him 48.57%.

Quentyn Daniels is a nominee from the PFP whose standing in the poll was 20%. He is a former presidential candidate (with a meager 4% of the vote), a former Malan Governor, and a two-term Deputy. He has recently changed parties from the LibDems to the PFP. His problem is getting over the losing streak (2 of 4 elections lost) and preparing a large case with centrists that he is the better candidate of the three.

Jeremy Groghan, a Conservative, managed 20% in the poll despite being a political neophyte and marred in a stock fraud scandal. He will have to overcome these challenges in order to have even a sliver of a chance at being the first Vice-President.