Link to the original news post
Just yesterday on the 27th of July, Elections Supervisor Syndicality announced the results of SimDemocracy’s 147th Presidential Election: Candidate Zepz of the SPQR party had won with an overwhelming plurality of 214 points in the score round. He received 36 votes in the instant runoff, whereas runner-up Halfcat of the Alternative for SimDemocracy only received 26.
The election turnout (71 valid votes) was much higher than that of the last Presidential Election (67 valid votes), but on the other hand also lower than that of the recent Senatorial Election, which saw 94 unique ballots, implying that the recent activity increase might be of transient nature.
The newly elected President has already announced his cabinet: Medmouse would become the Secretary of Expansion, whereas Delulu would become the Attorney General. He also recommended the Attorney General to replace the current SimDemocracy Bureau of Intelligence Director with Saket aka Budo, and the current Office of Homeland Security Director (which coincidentally would be him) with Jefferywillkill. For context, both the SDBI and OHS are offices within the Department of Justice, so their departmental heads aren’t directly appointed by the President, but rather by the Attorney General; they also don’t require Senate confirmation, unlike the two other positions mentioned before.
The two recommendations to the AG were promptly followed by sitting Attorney General Literal about ten hours later, but both the appointment of the Expansion Secretary and Attorney General have been subject to some backlash within the Senate.
Firstly, the AG appointment has been met with significant criticism for turning the Attorney Generalship into a political position by replacing the last AG, Literal (who would have only been in office for a few hours if Delulu got confirmed), without a clear reason. According to Senator Sunbear, this could set precedence that would potentially enable more partisan appointments in the future. In response to this and due to a few other reasons, Delulu has since announced she refused the appointment, causing the President to take back the appointment and thus keeping Literal in office.
Secondly, Medmouse’s appointment to the position of Expansion Secretary has also been subject to significant controversy, with the outgoing Secretary Muggy arguing that Medmouse should not be appointed due to his recent inactivity within the department. Department of Expansion employee Birdish who was also recognized during the hearing even went as far as to say he would go on strike or leave the department entirely if Medmouse was appointed. Both Muggy’s and Birdish’s statements have been criticized as nepotism by Senator Notcom. With the chamber’s opinion seemingly largely divided on the issue, no estimate for whether Medmouse will be confirmed or not can be made.
Taking a bit of a step back from executive appointments, the recently elected President actually hasn’t done that much else, partially because he still was on a trip when he initially got elected and it took him some time to get home. No Executive Orders have been issued yet, but that will most likely change very soon.