Definitions of terms:
Government, capital G: The party or coalition of parties that supports the Prime MInister and her administration consistently, and which represents her basis of support in the legislature.
Opposition, capital O: The party or coalition of parties that consistently opposes the Government.
...
Hrm.
Basically,
@PoptartProdigy , you're trying to make it very clear that this is (for now) Prime Minister Quest. That makes sense. The trick is making sure that we have the toolkit a prime minister would normally have- in particular, the tool of generally being a member of the party leadership of whichever is the most prominent of the parties forming the Government.
Everyone who's calling the prime minister a "powerless functionary" or "sock puppet" is, frankly,
wrong about how parliamentary systems work. But the reason they're wrong is important. It's because the prime minister is chosen by a powerful coalition within the legislature. They are the metaphorical 'point man' for carrying out that party (or coalition's) agenda.
To some extent we've already experienced this!
,,,
Check out
@AKuz 's rundown of the parties, which I gather is canonized as of... I dunno, Turn 1? 2?
Victoria Falls The world wakes from a fever dream into a nightmare. Try to find your feet in a devastated North America and find a way to end the dream for good.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Victoria Falls The world wakes from a fever dream into a nightmare. Try to find your feet in a devastated North America and find a way to end the dream for good.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Johnson is the leading figure of a political bloc of three parties: The Commonwealth Progressive Party, the
Popular Commonwealth Progressive Party, and the Christian Socialists. These three parties hold 28%, 18%, and 12% of the vote share, respectively, as of the time
@AKuz wrote those omakes, giving Johnson a very solid majority (58%) to support her. Now, Johnson herself is a CPP leader, which puts her in the 'right' of the three parties*. Her party is almost as big as the other two combined, but she's had to triangulate further to the left to satisfy her coalition partners.
I've even alluded to this a bit. For instance Sara Goldblum is Assistant Secretary of Defense for Munitions and Johnson has deliberately reined her in when she exerts pressure on certain munitions producers because she's not happy with their output. Because they're co-ops, and she doesn't want to piss off the Christian Socialists. Something similar happened that got that Red Banner place the provisioning contract that resulted in
@clockworkchaos 's boatload of Blue Mountain Farmers hilariously getting pelted with a pile of communist literature that they now uneasily edge past as if it were a live bomb.
One great strength of Johnson's coalition is that (again, as of 2074) it occupied a pretty solid position in the center of CFC politics. The parties to the right of them only have about 13% of the legislature (old-school Democrats and old-school Republican remnants, both now marginalized). The party to the left of them (the Commonwealth Farmer-Labor Party) has about 25% of the legislature. The only
likely ways for Johnson's Government to go down are if:
1) The balance of votes in the legislature shifts. This might happen as more citizens are brought in, which is a very real consideration given that we've assimilated something like 20-30% of the Commonwealth's 2073 population in just the last 2-3 years.
2) Johnson screws up in some way that causes her own CPP party to abandon her. Say, a corruption scandal (won't happen while she's the PC), or disastrous misfortune in handling some very important national policy item (say, a famine breaking out).
3) OR, the junior partners in her coalition might both ditch the CPP and link up with the CFLP and form a leftist government; they'd have the votes, barely (or more than barely if the balance in the legislature shifts leftward). Now, that might or might not be attractive to the Christian Socialists and PCPP. They might be better off with the CPP, in their own opinions. But it's an issue.
______________________
*(note that even the CPP is
still to the left of, say, the 2020 Democratic Party platform. The PCPP and the Christian Socialists are
farther to the left)
Now, we've
had, in effect, mandates imposed on us. Failure to deal with the famines could have seen Ron Burns in hot water; he might not have been deposed but it would hurt. Failure to deal with the housing crisis or the
next round of impending famine could potentially sink Sara Johnson's Government.
To me, the key takeaway is that the most likely "mandates" Johnson would get from the legislature take two forms:
1) Bills passed to deal with pressing crises and major national policy items, where we are expected to deal with the crisis or Johnson gets kicked out of office. This is basically what we already knew we were dealing with, or should have known.
2)
Specific measures taken to appease the members of Johnson's coalition. This may take the form of, for example, mandatory AP spending on housing subsidies and welfare programs, DC shifts to certain economic development or military procurement options, and so on.
It is relatively unlikely that we'd see mandates hitting Johnson from either the left or right
outside her coalition, simply because she controls a large bloc in the center of Commonwealth politics and no one to either flank of her really has the votes to force anything on her.
Except, possibly, the CFLP passing something where Johnson's coalition partners flip to side with the CFLP, and not with Johnson.
@PoptartProdigy , what do you think? Am I more or less analyzing the situation correctly?
