(Year 231, Summer) A regional reform is overdue and everyone agree that the Year 235 election shall be the first election based on the new region structure, where the number of People Chamber seats per region will better reflect each regions' population. Today Region 12's 3,264,300 residents represent 78,4 % of the kingdom's population, but are represented by 9 seats (=votes), which is less than 43% of the People Chamber. At the same time Region 8's 4,000 residents has 1 seat (nearly 5%). It means that if you live in Region 12 your vote has way less impact compared to residents of the smaller regions.
- This old regional structure will get adjusted, we just need to decide how. We must try to respect three limitations:
1. According to all older documents there shall be 8 regions of the kingdom. By keeping this number, we make the changes a lot easier for everyone, administratively.
2. Each region must have minimum 1 seat at People Chamber, or they would get no political impact at all. It is not possible to have less than 1 seat, and letting two regions share one seat would not be a good solution. This means each region ought to have minimum 200,000 residents.
3. At the same time there are not enough seats to reflect the extremely sized regions, such as the city of San Myshuno, so there can never be a totally fair balance between the large and small regions. We can only try to limit the injustice, not remove it completely. We can avoid the smallest regions, and we can split up the largest. We will also look into different ways to adjust the election routine itself, and perhaps the bigger region(s) can benefit from choosing departments first, etc. We will see.
But the dilemmas don't stop here. Recently Oasis Springs suggested to split from Region 12, because of their geography and climate requiring a different political focus. They want Oasis Springs incl. StrangerVille to join Region 7, which is Advorton incl. Chestnut Ridge. This raises more complexity as Oasis Spring is a rather small part of Region 12 and was never addressed as part of the original problem. At the same time, it might make it harder to merge Advorton with another region because merging regions should require common borders.
The idea so far has been to split San Myshuno from Region 12, maybe even by seeing it as 2 new regions; the original districts Meadows (incl. Del Sol Valley) and Myshuno (incl. Magnolia Promenade). Del Sol Valley is today administrated from Meadows, mainly because the Royal Palace is there and the Monarch shall not be involved with People Chamber politics, but there exist plenty of reasons why del Sol Valley should form their own region.
Regions that are likely to be somehow merged are 4 Crafthole, 7 Advorton and 8 Ticktop. Total effect would be 2 new regions and 2 old regions gone. With Oasis Spring's request, there will be the need of a 9th region, and minimum 2 more old regions must merge into others. Del Sol Valley breaking out will complicate this puzzle even further.
- We must come to a conclusion by end of next year (Year 232), to assure Councils and Political parties time to adjust before the Year 235 election. First we must debate Oasis Springs, also known by its old name, Verde. I think all parties want as few changes as possible, but at the same time if we do this thoroughly, the new structure should be longer lasting.
The case will be fully debated this year, and alongside the Mazaloom map is being corrected. Regional botany as well as weather systems are being looked into this year, and will affect our new map. All regions have been asked to report their wild plants, and Meteorologist Caspar Jupiter is currently making a detailed research regarding national weather systems. More about these projects in future articles.
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