Kation Politics Continued
Kation Politics is based on a Parliamentary structure, with an Upper and Lower House. The Lower House contains the parties and is essentially the driving force for introducing new laws and so forth. The largest party in the lower house is able to form a government with the leader of this party taking the position of the Principal Investigator. General elections take place every 5 years and each planetary habitat will have a number of Members of Parliament somewhat representative of the population of each habitat.
The Upper House is composed of individuals, with party allegiances strictly forbidden, these members are elected to 12 year terms with no chance of re-election. They are meant to base their case for election to the Upper House on areas of expertise, whether it be law, economics or science. This Upper House is then used as form of check on the Lower House, a means of having reason conquer passion. The Upper House elects a single member of the Upper House to the near-powerless position of the Head of State[1], generally based on a respected member or someone who is widely acknowledged to be quite intelligent and also charismatic. This position is held until death or resignation.
The Judicial system is mostly common law, although its not completely independent of the rest of the government quite a few traditional barriers prohibit the other branches of government overstepping their bounds.
The final positions of import is that each planet will have some form of Governor, these Governors are elected by the Members of Parliament of each individual planet. These Governors hold large emergency powers to be used in the case of invasion or planetary crisis and oversee such institutions that require a planetary view (such as large infrastructure projects; avoiding the problem of multiple planning agencies etc)
The Three Major parties are The Biotechnologists, The Cybernetics and The Third Way. The Biotechs are generally more conservative in their economic policies and the Cybernetics offer a more liberal economic policy. Both sharing an almost unparalleled belief in individual freedom which stands to reason considering the genetic make up and historical origin of the Kations. Only The Third Way offers a more authoritarian government, and has led it to be a Third party, sometimes able to upset elections but never able to seriously compete for a majority, it also holds a rather central position on economics.
Kation politics are not just divided by economic and social matters, there is still quite a strong divide between people who think that Cybernetics or Biotechnology offers the best chance to advance their persons, this has led to a rather steady progression in both fields as people are slowly convinced of the benefits of both.
[1] A bit like a well liked King I suppose....
OOC: well that was fun, I got a bit lost there and I can see room for further reform, i.e. when the Kations expand beyond a single system you will get system governors.
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