Politics in Kimmystan
According to the Constitution of Kimmystan, Kimmystan is a unitary constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, wherein the King of Kimmystan is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. Power is separated among the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, as defined by the Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. The current king is King Kim I of Kimmystan. Kimmystan is considered to be one of the most developed democracies and states of justice in Outernatia.
The Monarch is commander-in-chief of the Kimmystanian Armed Forces, and serves as chief diplomatic official abroad and as a symbol of unity and peace. The monarch was crowned King of Kimmystan in 2007 after the tragic death of his mother, Queen Tove of Kimmystan.
In practice, the Prime Minister exercises the executive powers. Constitutionally, legislative power is vested with both the government and the Parliament of Kimmystan, but the latter is the supreme legislature and a unicameral body. Kimmystan is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. The Parliament can pass a law by simple majority of the 169 representatives, who are elected on the basis of proportional representation from 10 constituencies for four-year terms.
Political System
The Parliament of Kimmystan, called the Tinget (meaning The Assembly), ratifies national treaties developed by the executive branch. It can impeach members of the government if their acts are declared unconstitutional. If an indicted suspect is impeached, Parliament has the power to remove the person from office.
Tinget is the supreme legislature of Kimmystan, established in 1780 by the Constitution of Kimmystan. It is located in Nordfjord. The unicameral parliament has 169 members, and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation in ten plural member constituencies. (the ten regions of Kimmystan). All of the inhabitants that are 16 or older have the right to vote in the elections being held in Kimmystan.
150 are elected directly from the 10 constituencies, and an additional 19 seats ("levelling seats") are allocated on a nationwide basis to make the representation in parliament correspond better with the popular vote for the political parties. A 4% election threshold is required for a party to gain levelling seats in Parliament. There are a total of 169 Members of Parliament.
Procedure
The legislative procedure goes through five stages. First, a bill is introduced to parliament either by a member of government or, in the case of a private member's bill, by any individual representative. Parliament will refer the bill to the relevant standing committee, where it will be subjected to detailed consideration in the committee stage. The first reading takes place when parliament debates the recommendation from the committee, and then takes a vote. If the bill is dismissed, the procedure ends. The second reading takes place at least three days after the first reading, in which parliament debates the bill again. A new vote is taken, and if successful, the bill is submitted to the President to approval. If parliament comes to a different conclusion during the second reading, a third reading will be held at least three days later, repeating the debate and vote, and may adopt the amendments from the second reading or finally dismiss the bill.
Once the bill has reached the Kimmystan the bill must be signed by the King himself and countersigned by the Prime Minister. It then becomes a Kimmystanian law from the date stated in the act or decided by the government.
Elections
Members to Storatingur are elected based on party-list proportional representation in plural member constituencies. This means that representatives from different political parties are elected from each constituency. The constituencies are identical to the 6 regions of Kimmystan. The electorate does not vote for individuals but rather for party lists, with a ranked list of candidates nominated by the party. This means that the person on top of the list will get the seat unless the voter alters the ballot.
The Sainte-Laguë method is used for allocating parliamentary seats to parties. As a result, the percentage of representatives is roughly equal to the nationwide percentage of votes.
The number of members to be returned from each constituency varies between 4 and 19. To determine the apportionment of the 169 seats amongst the 6 regions, a two-tier formula is used, based on population and geographic size. Each inhabitant counts one point, while each square kilometer counts 1.8 points
157 of the seats are regular district seats. These are awarded based on the election results in each county, and are unaffected by results in other counties. Twelve of the seats (two for each region) are leveling seats which are given to parties that win fewer seats than their share of the national popular vote entitles them to. A party must win 4% of the popular vote in order to win compensation seats, but may still win district seats even if it fails to reach this threshold. The system for apportioning seats is biased in favour of rural areas since the area of the county is a factor, but the system of compensation seats reduces the effect this has on final party strength.