It's only the second day of the 98th Parliamentary session, but intense campaigning and the attendant politicking and alliance-forming are already underway. Nowhere is this political process more apparent than in the official party room of the MEAP, where its members are constructing their candidate's campaign as if strategizing for war. Their party-elected nominee is Nasser Siadat, an intrepid candidate who chose to turn down a possible slot as a party official of the MEAP in deference to the neutrality and unity he seeks to promulgate should he be elected as leader of Parliament. “What I'm trying to do is to stay out our our party, because I'm not just focused on Middle Eastern affairs, I'm focused on unity,” Siadat explicated. “As leader of Parliament, I'll be there to serve 'them,' not just 'us'.”
Siadat seems relentlessly driven in his campaign to sell the idea of unity: indeed, it seemed to be his generic, go-to answer for this reporter's numerous and disparate questions. In response to an inquiry regarding his agenda: “My main focus is unity”; on how he plans on creating consensus within Parliament's many varying parties should he be elected: “I will focus on encouraging dialog via unity”; about how he plans on ensuring that the interests of all of Great Petronia will be protected, and not just those of the MEAP: “I'm going for unity within all of the various parts of the country.” It is not a little obvious that this concept of unity will be the driving point of Siadat's message. To this reporter, there exists a concern as to whether if one attempts to please everyone, one might end up pleasing no one, but this seems not to trouble Siadat. “All in all, I think everyone will realize that I'm working for a neutral stance,” he explains, “and that I'll ensure that everyone's two bills won't go to waste.”
- EMILY MOLINE
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