Intergalactic Summit

There always WERE checks and balances on his authority - as the CEP proved when they stepped in and removed him. That was always their right.

As I've said, I think they reacted to slowly to what seems an impossibly fast slide into decline - but they did act. Remember those who were ghoulishly predicting a civil war? It never happened. The CEP is back in power, Heth is being excised from the State as we speak.

I'm certainly not confident enough in my opinion to flat out state that you're wrong, Priano-haani.

But I will note that his abuses were at the end of his term of office and that they increased in scope as the trend continued. Whether or not it was a mistake, was it obvious that it was a mistake at the time that the CEP acceded to popular demand and appointed him Executor?

Hindsight is the only perfect sight.

I don't imagine the CEP is in a hurry to appoint a new Executor. I wonder if they would ever agree on another appointee?

I wasn't aware that there actually WAS a popular cry for another Executor. I think it's pretty clear that any justification for a repeat would include, for example, a fixed t erm of office as well as other safeguards.

Perhaps any Executor should be forced to stand down from any position with a corporation - as the Amarrian Emperor or Empress must do with their former House?

let's be clear on this - Heth's position on the CEP was legitimate, but the CPD and position of Executor were both illegitimate from the start. The reason the CEP never stood up to him was because he had the overwhelming majority of the State's citizens at his back, ready to riot if they sensed any hint of something which might be construed as nepotism. If they had, it would have been a disaster for the State both economically and politically. At the very least it would have cemented his position and allowed him to enact more sweeping changes than he actually did. The ones he DID implement were aggressive enough.

To borrow a quaint Gallentism, he had the megas by their short-and-curlies.

It took them five years to disentangle themselves and oust our illegitimate dictator, and I consider that to be a feat of incredible speed and competence given how popular he was back in YC111. It speaks to the CEP having understood what their best strategy was probably before Heth's first sortie into their meeting room. They must have read the political wind within minutes of the Caldari Constructions takeover, and formulated a long-term strategy, the first step in which was "Bide our time".

He was his own worst enemy in the end of course, but if you're suggesting that the Panel could have just stonewalled him from the off, then your memory of the swell of popularity that was at his back is fuzzy. They played the slow, sure game rather than the aggressive, potentially disastrous one, and have grown in my esteem as a result.

Whilst we cannot be ruled by the mob, it's foolish to pretend that we can ignore the interests of the rank and file Citizenry.

Yes, the mistake we are discussing at the moment is the mistake of appointing Heth as Executor, but we mustn't think that the mistake STARTED there. It started with a slow rot of the standards of Meritocracy within the upper echelons of the Corporate Executive.

Heiian should ALWAYS be our guiding principle. Some of us forgot that.

In this respect the Gallente are entirely correct - what the citizen majority want, the citizen majority get. The top floor of a tower could not exist without the foundations supporting it. Any CEO understands this - if your corporation is of one mind and you are of another, there's little you can do. When you're no longer trusted to be in the driving seat, you shall be replaced.

The philosophy of meritocracy versus democracy is that leadership should have earned the position through competence, rather than popularity, and should be motivated primarily by their duty to see their corporation and the State succeed, and whose punishment comes from failing in that duty. As opposed to being motivated by tenure.

What we got in Heth was a leader given his position through popularity, and whose motive was neither duty nor tenure, but hatred.

Perfection is an impossible dream. But I think we've learned some things here and I suspect it'll be dark on a star long before the Caldari public make the mistake of investing so much trust and adoration in an individual again.

What Tibus Heth forgot is that a Caldari leader is expected to serve their subordinates just as subordinates serve their leader for loyalty is a privilege earned not granted. A leader earns that loyalty and respect by seeking to be guided by honest principles and convictions of honour, duty and obligation to the State, to their fellow citizen and to their corporation. Most of all a leader must seek to act with accountability and take responsibility for their decisions and actions. With Tibus Heth it became more and more evident that he was a man who knew nothing of what it takes to be a true and dignified Caldari leader. He was a charlatan and liar who abused the confidence and trust of those he was tasked to lead by debasing the highest of Caldari principles of duty and of service to purchase the silence by which he could carry out his crimes against Kaalakiota and the State.

Tibus Heth was a hypocrite and a liar who rose to power on the memory of Otro Gariushi yet was all too willing to denigrate the man when history turned against his delusional ambitions. A man who decried and railed against corporate corruption and nepotism yet it was Tibus Heth himself who was willing to embezzle from the coffers of Kaalakiota to turn the CPD into his own private army even as he sought to place his own cronies into positions of power and authority inside the company. The very same man who proclaimed himself as an advocate for the common worker who was complicit in murdering the citizens of Kaalakiota when they had the audacity to seek to hold to account the decisions of their leader. Worst of all, Tibus Heth was a man incapable of taking responsibility for his decisions and his failures. He managed to accomplish practically nothing as Executor. He murdered Admiral Yanala for acting upon her conscience as a true military officer. And in the end, he had the almost peculiar delusion that he for all his continued failures both in corporate governance and political leadership he alone was worthy to become a new Raata Emperor.

Perhaps it is a fitting punishment for Kaalakiota to be in the position it is currently in for our inaction and complacency in not removing such an ill-fit CEO from authority before Tibus Heth managed to steer the company into ruin. If such is the case then I will gladly bear it as such for I am a citizen of Kaalakiota and duty demands nothing less, if not with a degree of honest introspection as to how to prevent such disaster in the future.

However for those that believe the disasters Tibus Heth has managed to wreak upon Kaalakiota means its imminent demise then I would say one can doubt much in life but never doubt the resolve of the soldiers of Kaalakiota. We are the honoured bearers of the legacy of Mathias Sobaseki and it is we who shall realize his sacred dreams everyday we draw breath through our duty, our service and our sacrifices. Not even the designs of a petty and weak man shall prevent that day we shall once again raise the banner of Blood and Soil with pride and our boots fall to the cadence marches sounded by a true heir of Sobaseki such as Haatakan Oiritsuu.

There is a LOT of rebuilding to be done. Not only does Oritsuu-haani need to replace the nepotistically appointed upper-management, but a good chunk of the middle-management worthy of their positions resigned in the face of Heth's policies.

No, Kaalakiota is a part of the State forever, but to play down the size and the seriousness of the task awaiting the Chairwoman is a mistake.

Still, Verin-haan is right that the same basic raw material that made Kaalakiota a collossus still exists. If we all put our shoulders into it, I'm sure things will improve.

Yes, that is often the case when dealing with Mentas Blaque, isn't it?

Opps!