by Max Barry

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The Alpine Kingdom of
Scandinavian Liberal Paradise

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Svalbardian provinces, special administrative zones, and local government

Brief overview

The Alpine Kingdom of Svalbard has a noticeably devolved government, wherein each province (denoted by doted lines on the LinkRegional Map) elects its own parliament that runs local affairs. These affairs include but are not limited to: fire and flood prevention, law enforcement, transport within the province, waste collection, (some) social policies, and dead body collection (an actually important role the provinces held in the early days of the kingdom); meanwhile big picture, nationwide issues like the judiciary system, military operations, national transport initiatives, as well as economic and climate policy are handled exclusively by the central government in the Winter Palace's Senate in Trondelang: however this was not always the case, as in 1946 the Liberal Conservative government of Douglas O'Donnel passed legislation that significantly reduced the powers the provinces had previously held over the central government; notably the requirement for all legal cases to be dealt with in government run courts; but despite this the parliaments of the provinces are still an important institution of Svalbardian people's lives today.
In addition to the twenty nine provinces, Svalbard also administers thirteen 'special administrative zones', called 'Krais' in Svarizian, where instead of the local population electing a parliament who works in tandem with the nationl government, these territories are controlled directly by the Senate and do not have a local parliament, nor do their populations vote in national elections: sounds like a raw deal, that is until you realise every Krai currently in the Alpine Kingdom is almost entirely depopulated, with only the tiny far flung island of Nwevo Øts-Neuf having a permanent population of around twenty to complain that they don't have representation - however the government would rather prefer to maintain this status as the island contains important military bases and scientific testing facilities.

Elections in the provinces

Unlike the national election; held every three years which uses proportional representation, the local provinces elect their parliaments every four years and employ a different system. Each province is divided into 100 boroughs, which each have their own local candidates running in them - each citizen is given two votes, one to vote for a candidate, and one to vote for what political party they'd want in charge of the province. The discrepancy between the proportion of first and second votes in analysed, and members are added from most popular political party which is under represented to least, until all two hundred seats in the parliament are filled and it is made as representative of the locals' wishes as possible. This system, known domestically as Additional Member System (AMS) and more commonly abroad as Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), allows for citizens to have local representatives whilst also keeping the parliament as representative of the population as possible; some have even asked for the national government to use an amended form of AMS in their elections instead of regular proportional representation, as to allow for the voice of local people to be heard more in the Senate.
Guilds

Guilds in Svalbard are responsible for maintaining the economy, as well as upholding worker's rights through their Trade Unions departments. Their historical significance and contemporary importance is incredibly high, and thus they have a strange but special place in Svalbardian politics: they participate in elections. Each guild based in a province will warrant an extra seat in their local parliament; and within these guilds the members elect one of their own guild members to the seat; these members will usually be of a political party, however some are independents - the only politicians of their type in Svalbard. These extra guild seats have sometimes been incredibly significant in determining the leading political party in a province, and as such have garnered some controversy in the past.
The local parliaments
For descriptions of each political party, click here

Other miscellaneous information

The provinces on mainland Svalbard as well as the islands of Hakoensville and Ilis are based largely on the borders of the administrative districts in Svalbard at the height of the Serene Republic of Trondelang, however some adjustments have been made since then. Miselvigot and Úlistava both vehemently coveted the lucrative docking city of Lires to be in their territory. As violence on the disputed border was seeming imminent, the central government had to step in a make a compromise: neither state would receive the city, and it would be ceded to the previously landlocked province of Mirralena; but to compensate the government invested heavily into the two provinces new capitals, Freissburg and Karachen. A bit further south, the regions of Perogrov and Duobala used to be one province, however after the rule of the Everiatas the Svalvo-Nordic population had been pushed south and out of the northern half of the province, leading to their remaining population fearing their interests would be silenced by the Svarizian northerners. They petitioned the change this, and in response they organised a plebiscite to split the province down ethnic lines, thus creating what we know call Perogrov.
The parliaments of the provinces themselves have also created a significant amount of controversy; historically the ruling government has never held every single local parliament, thus creating tension between the national and local government. This has always been particularly prominent in the parliament of Trondelang, whose government building sits across the river from the Winter Palace, leading to both very tense standoffs between governments run by opposing parties as well as rather comical metaphorical shouting battles between the two entities as they stick up giant signs on the side of their buildings to insult each other.
Citizens in the more populous states have also kicked up a stink about how every parliament is forcibly set at two hundred members: meaning that the votes of people in highly populated provinces (e.g. Trondelang, Øtsirkts, Djublaheim) are in essence worth less than those in provinces with fewer people (e.g. Minokovnyev, Sneuswerd, Úlistava); however despite the conflicts between central government and provinces, and the complaints about the institution, the system has managed to hang on almost entirely in tact since 1866 thanks to a combination of popular support for local parliaments, devolution being a key tenet of both the constitution and Svalbardian general consciousness, and the collective bargaining power of the local parliaments (parliaments in opposition to the government would remind them that by removing them they'd also be getting rid of parliaments that support the government, weakening them on the whole).

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