Iain Keers
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I, Jamesw, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, hereby appoint Iain Keers, Officer of the Order of the British eRepublik Empire, as conferred by the United Kingdom Honours Committee.
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Contents
Politics
Iain Keers is a former President of the United Kingdom and Treasurer/Secretary General of Phoenix. He has served twelve terms in the UK congress, as well as twenty-four terms in three countries as a Minister. Since he started his life he has been working towards strengthening The Unity Party, his first and only party since birth. He built the party from 237 members upon his accession to PP in March 2009, to a height of 825 members in January 2010. He is the author of the Economist newspaper, and economics is his passion ingame. He served as Treasurer of Phoenix from its inception to its unofficial close, saving three terms. This makes him the longest-serving Phoenix official. Upon the collapse of Phoenix Iain moved to Serbia to serve as Minister of Economics to the Kistru government, returning after the end of his term. Since then he has served as an advisor in the governments of Macedonia, the UK and Sweden, as Party President of the Unity Party and as advisor and current Secretary General of ONE.
First Congress Term
Iain Keers started his political career by running for Congress of the United Kingdom in the 25th January 2009 elections. A mere one month old, he was the youngest candidate. Glitches in eRepublik meant only three candidates stood: himself, Indiekid and Count Drakula. Iain Keers won comfortably. The first month of congress was for Iain, like most new congressmen, confusing. A great deal was going on, and in those early days of V1 legislation was incredibly complex. New legislation was regularly proposed, and congress was in many ways the power in the UK. This was partially due to the fairly balanced congress results, meaning that the President could rarely rely on a majority of congress to back them.
Second Congress Term
In February he ran again to maintain his seat, and won a landslide victory. Y&H had went from an all MDU region to a TUP region. Also elected were fellow TUP member Count Drakula and PCP member Jaden87. Jaden then betrayed his party by moving to the newly established Liberal Social Democrats Party. Iain focused his second term on assisting the MoFA Squiddy in international affairs, and inwardly attempting to introduce reforms into The Unity Party. This included some moves towards introducing the TUP Whip, the first TUP Policy Conference and the development of the Party Constitution.
Third Congress Term and PP
In March Iain ran for and won the Party Presidency of the Unity Party. He defeated friends and long-term TUP members Eadie and Ares989, and immediately began to transform the party. During the Congress Elections he re-ran for his Y&H seat and won, coming top of the national ballot with 27 votes, which was 57% of the vote in his region. In his first month in office as TUP leader he increased membership by a third, took over the PCP, made The Unity Post the seventh most subscribed UK newspaper and helped Malta_1990 win the Presidency. The first Party Presidency was also marked with a mass defection of those who opposed the internal reforms, leaving the Party somewhat light of older players, but more single-minded in its intent. This defection paved the way for a policy of external solidarity which defines TUP to this day.
Fourth Congress Term and Minister
He was selected by the new President as Minister of Finance, one of the fastest elevations to high office in UK history. Iain had never before served government, even as an apprentice or Under-Minister. He appointed Arthur Wellesley as his second in command, and had great respect for his abilities. In those days the principle purpose of the MoF was to supply currency to the various branches, to act as a Financial regulator in the Money Market and to advise the President on issues regarding spending. In his month Iain also made the first purchase of a state company for military use. The Q3 weapons company, purchased from Lotfire formed the backbone of the new era commune based military. On the 15th of April he contested the Party Presidency and narrowly defeated North East congress member and veteran Unity Party member John Forseti.
On April 25th Iain stood once again in his beloved region as congress member. He won again, though this was his final term for a while. After his terms as Minister, PP and Congressman expired he founded the paramilitary group Camelot, and sought to indirectly reform the military. With the support of around thirty citizens, he perfected the 'Camelot Model' of military communes, which was later adapted as standard in the UK, Germany, USA and many other countries.
Return to politics
After serving for two months as leader of the Paramilitary group Camelot, Iain returned to government as Minister of Trade under President Hassan Pesaran. In his term he introduced regular monitoring and reporting on market trends, supplied business advice to new players and considerably improved communication in the department. He went on to serve as Minister of Trade/Minister of Economics until May 2010, where he took up a semi-permanent adviser position in cabinet.
Hassan Pesaran's government was marked by a notable shift to the left. Military communes were opened in large numbers, and military expansion was built on the back of mass government nationalisation of the arms industry. Around this time the first Co-Operative Group measures were taken by Iain Keers to regulate the food market. The goal was to provide Q2 food, the minimum required by new citizens, at a price approaching minimum wage. This was eventually accomplished when prices dropped to £1 in September/October 2009. The companies are currently operating as part of Iain's joint ventures with fellow TUP member Jamesw, providing cheap food to the masses. As always, these companies are designed to produce goods most attractive to new players with low incomes.
Fifth Congress term
On the 25th of July 2009 he stood for congress in Yorkshire and Humberside once again. Although saddened that so many old friends had moved on since he was there last, he still returned to Parliament with a comfortable ten votes.
Sixth Congress term
On the 25th of August 2009 he re-stood for congress. He won alongside Indiekid, beating KaiserAlex the UKRP candidate by just one vote. On the 5th of September 2009 GLaDOS was elected from The Unity Party as President, marking the election of the fourth consecutive TUP backed President. During the month, GLaDOS defected to the UK right wing, representing a betrayal which would mark the careers of both players throughout the coming year.
Seventh Congress Term
In September Iain moved to the West Midlands region and stood against veteran UKRP congressman LordJustice. He won first place in the region and took up position there for one month. On the 18th of October Iain announced he would not be standing for congress, choosing to take another military break as a member of the PEACEKeepers.
Eighth Congress Term
In November Iain returned to congress in the West Midlands region with 21 votes, alongside FatefulDestruction from the UKRP
PEACE/Phoenix
Shortly after joining the PEACEKeepers Iain rose to officer rank, and eventually joined the PEACE community as emeritus. Thus he represented the UK as an international leader after the collapse of PEACE and the rise of Phoenix. His financial history led to him being unanimously selected nine times as Treasurer of Phoenix. During this time he has advised more than a dozen countries on financial and fiscal policy, helped design a global stimulus package to end the first great recession and became permanent emeritus of the Phoenix Strategic Command.
Emeritus
After five terms as sole Treasurer, and two as joint-treasurer, Iain stood down. Sharing two joint terms with other players had shown him that he was tired of the role and he stood aside. However, after just one month he was asked to return by veteran emeritus Donnie Bronco. He once more stood up to the role and has now fulfilled two more months of leadership. The role involves much more than the original intention of controlling finances, and he is often called on to mediate disputes, advise on strategy and lead the alliance as a whole. Iain changed his IRC nickname to Ivan Kersovic, in honour of the Serbians who play the game.
Secretary General
On the 22nd November 2010 Iain Keers was elected as Secretary General of Phoenix. Shortly after being elected Iain began a radical reform of Phoenix and led a fightback which allowed him to lead Phoenix members to regain all of Phoenix' original regions and then launch major invasions of the neighbouring countries of Cyprus, Australia, Canada, Spain, Ireland and Ukraine. Despite great victories, tension between Hungary-Brazil and a growing friendship between Hungary and Poland led to the withdrawal of those members from Phoenix, precipitating its dissolution in January 2011. It has been replaced by two new alliances, Terra and ONE, both of which are now struggling with the same problems Phoenix faced.
Conclusions
You can read in detail my first year as a citizen in this article, which I wrote on my 1st Birthday.
