Ninth AIN General Elections

The Ninth AIN general Elections ran from 1st of August to the 30th of August, with campaigning occuring from the 11th to 20th of August and voting from 21st to 30th of August. The structure of the election started with nominations for all the spots that will be voted on for their respective position. If nobody runs for a department then a member of AIN would be assigned to it by the admins and the new Executive. The campaigning occurred next until the 20th of August where manifestos would be required to be able to run for the position.

The positions won from this general election ran from 1st September 2013 - 1st March 2014 when the 10th General Election will take place, these include all ministries of AIN and the Executive Council consisting of President of the Alliance, Vice President of the Alliance and Speaker of the Parliament.

Structure of election
The information needed to run for a position in this election was posted on the 2nd of August, 2013, with the structure of election being revealed, saying;

"Full members who wish to run for a specific ministry will post below and will be added to the list of nominees for that ministry. If there is only one person running for a ministry, then "other" will be the option at the ballot, and those who vote other will have to PM the electoral commissioner with their vote. If nobody is running for a department then a member will be assigned to it by the admins and the new Executive. You can only run for two ministries maximum.

Anyone contesting these positions is free to begin working on a campaign now, but you are not permitted to post it on the forums or have a campaign signature until 11 August at the earliest. Please ensure that you only have one signature image showing during the election period. In addition, all candidates must post a campaign manifesto at some point during the campaign period in order to appear on the ballot for the offices they are running for. Any candidate who fails to post a manifesto before campaigning ends will be automatically DISQUALIFIED and will not appear on the ballot."

Nominations
All nominations must be posted in the  Ninth General Election section of the forums, shown in the Featured This Month segment. The nominations closed on the 10th of August to transition into the campaigning section of the general election. A list of ministries and positions were detailed in the first post.

Nominations were limited in 2 formats, both for the elections for the Executive Council (President, Vice President and Speaker of Parliament) required to have a member of AIN who have been a member continuously since the 1st of March 2013 and requires not to hold a dual membership in another union, as according to the Minimum Membership Term Act and the Alliance Council Act , these members will be able to run for Executive Council positions in February 2014

Below is a list of the positions and ministries to run for in this elections ;

Executive Council
 * President of the Alliance
 * Vice president of the Alliance
 * Speaker of the Parliament

Ministries
 * Ministry for Culture, Arts and Sport
 * Ministry for Education, Health and Infrastructure
 * Ministry for Finance and Information
 * Ministry for Environment, Agriculture and Transport

President of the Alliance
Zack nominated himself for President and campaigned during the normal campaigning period. As the only candidate for the office, he is expected to win a second term.

Vice President of the Alliance
Constantin (Hiigar) nominated himself for Vice President and campaigned during the normal campaigning period. However, due to his resignation from the AIN on 24 August, no one was elected Vice President during this election. A by-election for the office is scheduled for early September 2013.

Speaker of Parliament
Emir nominated himself for the Speaker of Parliament and started his campaign on 11 August.

Ministry for Culture, Arts and Sport
The Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sport (MCAS) was originally a battle between current minister, Otto, and new runner Ying Blanc. Otto resigned from the nominations after it was decided that he would run for the next general election instead of this because of issues with timing, leaving Ying un-opposed and the only remaining ministry with an opposition being the ministry for Environment, Agriculture and Transport.

Ying posted his manifesto on the 11th of August. In his manifesto he stated that he would continue on with popular alliance activities such as AINVision, the Alliance Games and the Alliance Football Association. he also stated to be continuing the Alliance Expos, but with major upgrades in it's format. He also stated to be bringing back failed events for retries such as the Alliance Games which had only just been cancelled out of lack of interest before the general elections started, as well as restarting the Alliance F1 Series, a reboot of some form of award show, and possibly a new award show format to that of the Nobel Prizes.

He also claimed to be starting many other new events and organisations such as an official TV listing for AINTV, former broadcaster of AINVision before AINVision Cattala 2013. Also included was an organisation similar to UNESCO in the collection of World Heritage Sites, which was revealed to be already in existence as AINESCO, but was un-worked on for long periods of time and almost forgotten. This would be initiated with the unique event, colaborated with the Ministry of Finance and Information, as the 7 AIN Wonders event. he also stated to be creating a new wiki article for the important historical events involved in AIn countries that are international, such as WW2 or transactions between 2 countries.

Ministry for Education, Health and Infrastructure
City_Master officially started his manifesto on the 14th of August 2013, running for the Ministry for Education, Health and Infrastructure, or MEHI for short.

Ministry for Finance and Information
Loony nominated himself to retain the place of the Minister of Finance and Information with his campaign starting on the 12th of August. In his manifesto he stated that he should be re-elected since he aimed to make the ministry more enjoyable for the members of AIN to participate in as well as his experience of being minister before and his willingness to improve where needed.

He also stated that he will introduce more events for the ministry including an AINWiki Month and an iMonth that have both been performed before and is aimed for early 2014. He also stated a unique event of the 7 AIN Wonders where countries will compete to get their landmarks into a list of top 7, inspired by New 7 Wonders of the World and run cooperately with the running Minister of Culture, Art and Sport and current AINSI - Ying Blanc.

For activity in his ministry, he has also stated that most of the events such as AINWiki Month and iMonth will become mandatory. Causing criticism from other members of this move.

Ministry for Environment, Agriculture and Transport
Will posted the start of his manifestos on the 12th of August.