UK + JP Devolved Executives - Design & Phased Plan

Status: Historical implementation plan; the regional executive offices and election wiring described here have shipped. Do not treat unresolved questions or phase checklists below as current behavior. Branch: rework/political-system-update Closes: Gate 0 finding - getRegionalExecutive() returns null for UK/JP.

Motivation#

The Political System Rework's Gate 0 audit (plan §"Gate 0 - Findings", 2026-05-05) identified that the State Overview tab's regional-executive chip can never display anything for UK or JP regions because no devolved-executive OfficeType exists in the schema. US (governor) and DE (ministerPresident) are wired. This document covers the design + implementation plan to close that gap.

Scope locked with user#

OfficeType reuse - the key insight#

{ type: "governor"; state: string } already has exactly the shape required for direct-elected single-seat regional executives. JP already has a governor entry in its officeTypes config (line 979), and REGIONAL_BILL_ASSENT_OFFICE_KEY[JP] is already "governor" - the office mechanically exists for JP today, just with no seat instances. UK is missing both pieces.

Display labels diverge by country (and by state for UK), but the office-type key, election cycle, action bonus, and party-strength weight are all identical. Recycling governor means zero changes to the OfficeType union, the election plumbing, action-refresh, or the bill-assent flow - only data + label work.

Seat inventory (12 new seats)#

UK - 4 seats:

• Scotland First Minister (state: "SCO")
• Wales First Minister (state: "WAL")
• Northern Ireland First Minister (state: "NIR")
• Mayor of London (state: "LON")

JP - 8 seats (one per game-region; JP regions are the in-game state unit, not the 47 RL prefectures):

• HOK / TOH / KAN / CHU / KNS / CGK / SHI / KYU regional governors

UK English regions other than LON (SEE, SWE, EAE, EMI, WMI, YHU, NWE, NEE) have no devolved executive - getRegionalExecutive() returns null for them.

Label resolution#

getRegionalExecutive() currently uses a country-keyed config. UK needs a per-state label (FM for SCO/WAL/NIR, Mayor for LON, null for everything else). JP uses one label country-wide.

function getExecutiveLabel(countryId, stateId): string | null {
  if (countryId === "US") return "Governor";
  if (countryId === "DE") return "Ministerpräsident";
  if (countryId === "JP") return "Governor";
  if (countryId === "UK") {
    if (stateId === "LON") return "Mayor of London";
    if (stateId === "SCO" || stateId === "WAL" || stateId === "NIR")
      return "First Minister";
    return null; // English non-London regions
  }
  return null;
}

Phases#

Phase 1 - Country config + regional-executive chip (this PR)#

Goal: regional-executive chip resolves correctly for UK + JP when officials exist. No officials exist yet - chip stays empty until Phase 3 seeds them. No schema changes because governor already covers all three new contexts.

Files touched:

• src/lib/constants/countries.ts5d ago:
  • Add governor entry to UK officeTypes array (mirrors JP shape, label "First Minister" or stays "Governor" - TBD by Phase 4 polish)
  • Add UK: "governor" to REGIONAL_BILL_ASSENT_OFFICE_KEY (UK already has regionalBillAssentTitle: "First Minister" on the config; this just makes the lookup explicit instead of falling back)
• src/lib/states/regionalExecutive.ts10d ago - extend with UK (per-state label) + JP
• src/lib/states/regionalExecutive.test.ts10d ago - coverage for new branches

Phase 2 - Election plumbing#

Goal: governor elections actually create + resolve for UK SCO/WAL/NIR/LON and JP regions on their 4-year cycles.

• Audit perpetualElections.ts (and country-specific election phases) to confirm governor elections fire for UK regions in {SCO, WAL, NIR, LON} and all 8 JP region ids. Add seat-creation paths if missing.
• Verify CYCLE_TURNS.governor = 192 is applied for both countries (it should be
  • the constant is country-agnostic).
• Verify preset-aware cycle anchoring picks up the 1991 / 2019 anchor correctly via electionToLarpYear().

Phase 3 - NPC seeding#

• Add seat entries in historicalSeats.ts for the 12 new seats × 2 presets.
• Generic-name NPC creation in seedUK.ts and seedJP.ts (e.g. "Scotland First Minister", "Mayor of London", "Hokkaido Governor" - display string only; no fabricated personal name).
• Insert into electedOfficials with electedAt = preset anchor; insert matching characters rows.

Phase 4 - UI verification + wiki + label polish#

• Verify chip surfaces on UK + JP state pages.
• Per-state label for UK bill-assent title (Mayor of London vs First Minister). Currently getRegionalBillAssentTitle(UK) returns "First Minister" country-wide; may need state-aware variant for LON.
• Wiki copy on partyOrganization.ts + state-overview docs for devolved execs.
• Verify OfficialsSection.tsx lists these officials on the state Politics tab.

Open questions#

• JP governor.termYears: 6 - JP config says 6 years, but CYCLE_TURNS.governor is 192 (4 yr). The cycle constant wins at runtime; the config metadata is informational. Should JP config be updated to termYears: 4 for consistency? (User confirmed "4 years, on its own cycle" - leaning yes, but flagging.)
• Mayor of London party-strength weight - full +1.0 PSW like the FMs, or lower given its smaller jurisdiction? Defer to Phase 2.
• 1991 ruling parties for seeds - research/lock during Phase 3.

Non-goals#

• No new OfficeType discriminants - governor is recycled.
• No indirect / parliamentary election mechanism for UK FMs (locked by user).
• No 47-prefecture governor system for JP (game models 8 regions).
• No new collections - re-use electedOfficials + characters + elections.
• No new turn-engine phases - existing election + action-refresh phases already handle governor.