"What have the Free Democrats ever done for us?"

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

There's been a lot of talk among the threads about the legislative/OrgLaw proposals of the various parties. But in a Parliamentary democracy like Talossa, we're electing an executive Government at the same time.

Rather than Talossa’s tradition of “passing laws and never enacting them”, the Free Democrat-led government has concentrated on doing things as a Government. Here’s a small list of what we’ve done.

1. We have taken back control of Talossa’s national website. For more than five years, talossa.com and our other national websites were hosted by a company which had ceased to exist, and our whole web presence only stayed up because no-one had remembered to turn off the server. During all that time, no government could figure out what to do about it! The Free Democrat-led government have moved our websites to a new host, at a reasonable price, with much better features, and – most importantly – totally under the control of the Talossan Royal Civil Service.
2. We will soon be moving to a New Wittenberg. Our new national discussion forum will have more features and also be under the control of our Royal Civil Service.
3. We worked well across the political divide. It is well known that I have republican sympathies. However, through ensuring regular communication with King John , we built a good working relationship, which enabled a lot of things to get done, while agreeing to disagree on other matters.
   We also supported initiatives from other parties such as the AMP party’s “Still Into This” Organic Law reform – on which we encourage you to vote PËR in the current referendum. Free Democrats worked well with members of other parties and none in the current Cabinet.
4. We reached out to inactive citizens. Other parties complain about how Talossa revolved entirely around discussions on Wittenberg. This Government took the step of not one, but two initiatives to reach out beyond that:
   
   1. We held a National Survey on what Talossa’s future should be which went out to all citizens, and got a 30% response rate. We published the results in full, even those which were uncomplimentary to the Government (or to me personally). We intend to act further on those results in the next Cosâ.
   2. We started La C’hronicâ, a monthly newsletter update of “what’s been happening in Talossa”, published on the National Website and mailed out to all citizens.
5. We weren’t afraid of failure. Talossa has been held back for too long by fear of taking initiatives in the face of opposition, including sabotage of new ventures by citizens who prefer inactivity to change. For example, we promoted a democratic debate between the provinces of Fiova and Florencia on whether they should merge – the people decided no, but it opened the way to a broader national conversation on changes to our provinces.

We hope the message is clear. In a Free Democrat-led Talossa, things get done. Things happen. You don’t get endless circular discussions on grand schemes for reform which get bogged down or sabotaged and then nothing happens. Some of the things we want to get done in the new Cosâ are:
• increasing the use of the Talossan language;
• increasing citizen activity through more games, puzzles and competition;
• make sure new citizens know more about Talossa’s culture and history before they immigrate;
• fundraise through “voluntary taxation”;
• sensible, democratic constitutional reforms.

Crucially, the Free Democrats are a team. We have challenged the Talossan tradition of one-man-band (and it is always a man, isn’t it?) political parties. Alongside me are standing a list of seven other active Talossans standing for Cosâ and Senäts – more than any other political party. And if you want to form and lead a successful government – not just promote legislation, or annoy people – you need a team.

Let’s be plain. Only a vote for the Free Democrats is sure to re-elect me and the current Government, and continue our record of achievement and success.