Did you miss me? When I get caught up in a good story, I become completely engrossed. Not even the allure of strange new planets can distract me. I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Whew, did he ever do a masterful job crafting a story together.
Anyway, it’s that time again, when it seems that all we hear about is politics. I was able to spend some time on Tr’zez’s planet gaining insight into another political system. I was somewhat surprised at what I found. To know Tr’zez, one might guess that they would just kill each other until a winner emerged and then that was the leader. On the contrary, they actually have a well-thought out system.
The lovely Lanei explained it to me. Each village has its own local leader. Every mrgal, (year?) interested candidates pledge their intentions to become the village gslkl. The eldest in the village asks each candidate a series of questions that has to do with the welfare of the village and how the said candidate would handle issues that could arise. A board is formed containing the next eldest, the youngest person to have slain a vrgil beast, and a person determined to be the median person in age. This board then judges the candidates according to their answers.
The village gslkl is chosen based on their intentions to look out for the welfare of the village. Each board member chooses their favorite candidate. If only one or two candidates are chosen, the winner is obvious. If each board member chooses a different candidate, then the elder chooses the winner of the three remaining candidates.
The village gslkl then rules for the mrgal with an authoritative hand. If someone in the village were to disagree with a decision the gslkl makes during the mrgal, that individual can call for a meeting of the board. To overrule the decision three of the four board members (the eldest becomes a member after the election) must rule in favor of the citizen to overturn it.
I haven’t witnessed the process nor met the village gslkl myself yet, so I have no idea how well the process actually works in practice. It certainly does sound civilized though for a village that includes Tr’zez.
~ Clark
