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Well, guess again, Thaecia. I'm back for a limited time only so that I can vote in the election that I had already invested time and energy into. To put it simply, the choice in this election is incredibly, crystally, plainly clear. You should all, every single one of you, be casting your ballots for Islonia to be our next Prime Minister. He is unrivalled in skill, experience, temperament, and accountability when compared to his chief competitor. Frankly, he blows ICH out of the water.

It is worth saying Altys and Islonia are the same people. Islonia is Altys’ puppet nation in Thaecia, but his NS name is Altys, and that’s what he’s most known as. So just bare with me a bit as I use both names below. :p

I'll start by comparing their levels of experience. Altys/Islonia has served in every single branch of Thaecian government. His first job was as a Court Justice serving on the High Court's inaugural bench with Rhyssuan peoples and Saint ryvern. Together with his colleagues, he built the unique and strong court system that we have in place today, from the ground up, with little more in place than some measly guidelines from the then (and still) vague and ineffectual constitution. On the bench, he participated in high profile decisions such as the overturning of the ban of Z00polis, the constitutional review of the right to run for public office, and more. He always made his rulings fairly and even-handedly, applying the law equally to everyone. In the middle of his tenure on the court, Islonia also picked up a second job: Secretary of the Roleplay. He took over at a time of great strife and saw the roleplay through, and continues to see it through tough times whenever they may pop up. In his leadership of the Roleplay, we see the same traits that we saw from him on the bench of the High Court. Fairness first. Equal rights for all. A steady and calm hand guiding the discussion when things got too heated. These are all traits critically important to a Prime Minister and all traits he had already displayed over a year ago in just two different offices. But wait, there's more. Quite a bit more, actually.

Eventually, Altys decided to leave the High Court and ran for Senator. From his election to his retirement from the role, we got more of the stellar, consistent, and well-executed work we had already become to expect from him due to his previous excellence. He passed important legislation such as the Congressional Toolbox Act (which simplified overcomplicated and outdated accountability laws we had), and saw through the passing of important treaties such as the Arnhelm treaty on recruitment. In his work as a legislator, Islonia was determined, he was open-minded, and he was most importantly willing to listen to others, change his mind when convinced he was wrong, and always do his best to make sure everyone’s voices felt heard.

He eventually retired from what is considered by much of Thaecia to have been the best class of Senators ever to serve together, with his colleagues including such titans in Thaecian history as Founder Andusre and current Presidential candidate Brototh. Overlapping a bit with his time in the Senate was his tenure as Korsinia's Deputy Prime Minister. This is where we get into what hits the point home, what really truly proves Altys is the guy you want leading the region, if you haven't already been convinced by his past experience. The Executive went through major changes in Kors and Islonia’s first term leading. There were improvements to efficiency (namely the Executive Transparency Motion thanks to which every resident of Thaecia can see the executive working in real time), improvements to the quality of work being done by the executive (revamped discord categories and channels, involving more the Cabinet and FA Senior Diplomats in big decisions – like the recruitment crisis, the NWE-Enadia-TDR ultimatum, and more), and finally vast improvements to the sheer amount of work being done by the Executive (for example he led the team that moved most of the executive information dispatches/factbooks to the government site). This was in no small part at all due to his work as the Deputy Prime Minister, a tenure which brought us gem after gem, with things like the Government website which he refined, and also the Late Nite Festival (the first one, though this was after his tenure as DPM) Oh, the Late Nite Festival. Thaecia's first, largest and best ever interregional event. This was organized and coordinated almost entirely by Altys. He was its mastermind, creating fun events, putting out excellent teasers(#1#2 for the event to keep people interested, and so much more. It can be nearly universally agreed that the festival was a smashing success for the region. That festival was also Altys' brainchild. It's also worth noting that Altys spearheaded and continues to contribute vast amounts of time and effort into Thaecia's recruitment schemes (see here: #1#2#3#4, some rather dull and boring not many people want to do, but work he understands needs to get done. Alas, though, all good things come to an end though, and so did Islonia’s tenure as DPM, rather unceremoniously. After the fact, he began to work a bit in The East Pacific, one of the largest and most active regions in the entirety of NationStates, a region where he eventually rose to the rank of Culture Minister and Senior Diplomat and kept such a massive behemoth fed with polls, games, activities and fun for days. That's no small feat and while it wasn't in Thaecia, it speaks vast amounts to the high quality of work he has always put out. Now we've finally caught ourselves up to his current job as our CM, or Culture Minister. He totally and completely revamped this role after several lackluster months from the ministry, pulling similar tricks as he did in TEP: themed days and polls, offering us a revamped bot economy, and keeping us entertained, happy, and stronger as a community.

During this term he also organized the second Late Nite Festival, another smash hit, which added elaborate and intriguing activities such as the R/D war games and more. So, all in all, a pretty good term there too. We can also note he was the Head Organiser of Paradoxical III and an organiser of Paradoxical II, as well as an organiser of the Harry Potter and Festival of Friends (leading the highly successful roleplay section: #1#2)

Noticing a pattern? Yep! Excellence work, level-headedness, a true commitment to Thaecia, and ingenious ideas that have improved us before and will do so on a whole new scale if and when we choose him to be the next Prime Minister.

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Now it's time for a little compare and contrast with ICH. There are three roles we'll go over here - Senator, Chairman of the People's Party of Thaecia, and Home Affairs Minister. Starting with Senator, his first role in the region. Back then ICH had something of a reputation for being a partisan attack dog, with views disjointed from reality, party before the region, and so on. As a Senator he was certainly committed, but his policy and the way he handled himself often missed the mark, crossing the line into toxicity and incoherence at times. The same goes for his leadership of the People's Party of Thaecia. He was committed to it - that's one thing I can praise him on - commitment, but his stances and decisions were often more than a bit off-putting to say the least. Chief among the ones that come to mind were his decision to merge the party into UNI for a non-voting seat on the leadership council without any consultation of the members of his party, and some bizarre ideas like a Thaecian investigative agency. Again, one cannot question his commitment but one can and should be a bit concerned based upon this tenure. We all know he’s shown real growth in the past months and distanced himself from this past, but one could ask if, with his recent experience, this is enough yet.

Moving onto his current job, Home Affairs Minister, a role in which he has admittedly been relatively successful. He came into the role after some very unproductive or bad predecessors, and did improve his ministry - I'll draw a distinction here though. He came into the role in similar circumstances to how Altys entered his CM spot, he came into the role with the same tools at his disposal, but I think it can widely be agreed upon that while Altys went above and beyond in the revitalization of his ministry, ICH didn't quite get there. ICH’s early success should even be attributed to Altys, who was the one to lead the government site team: #2 (which was at first under the Deputy Prime Minister office – and not the HAM since at the time it still was the United States of Edingbridge who was Interior Minister, thus before the ministry even was reformed into what it is today and before ICH was minister) as well recruitment initiative which Altys created from scratch (which also was under the DPM Office until the end of his term) and led until August 2020.. And, in fact, ICH’s current term has been marred with some inactivity in the latest months, poor integration of newcomers, and the mishandling of WA citizenship waivers.

I probably don't have to say a lot more when it comes to this comparison. ICH is a good guy - I like him and he’s shown real growth in the past months - but I sincerely have some severe worries about the path Thaecia will go down if he is elected Prime Minister over Altys, someone who is quite possibly the best candidate for the role we've ever had. So I really mean it when I say you are making the right choice when you cast your ballot for him - you’re casting a ballot for efficiency. You’re casting a ballot for consistency. You’re casting a ballot for the best damn Prime Minister Thaecia could possibly have.