COMMENTARY

Party Time Episode 7: Political alliances are not the answer at election time

by Anton Duckworth

Monday, February 23, 2004

In the last two episodes I have extolled the virtues of the right kind of party. Now it is time to look at the doubts and criticisms that have been expressed in some quarters.

In a Compass editorial of 14 October (to which I responded, but my letter was not published) the party system was contrasted unfavourably with "the loose political affiliations" of the past, perhaps referring to the "Unity", "Dignity", and "National" teams. 

These were parties of a sort, even if labelled "team", but parties of a rather elementary undemocratic kind. Such affiliations or alliances were formed to serve the politicos, to help them gain power; they were not formed to serve the people, to give them more power. There lies a crucial difference.

I am not casting aspersions on those who formed or joined these alliances in the past. No doubt they thought it was in the country's interests that they and their allies obtain or retain power; and it is doubtful that there were in those easier times enough people sufficiently concerned about government to want to participate actively in a fully-fledged party. But times have changed.

Admittedly, alliances of that sort can help voters at election time to gauge the effect of electing a particular candidate, but only to a limited extent. 

The looseness of the alliance and its limited objective mean that it is less reliable for voters, and less likely to reflect considered and agreed principles or policies on the part of the politicos concerned. That did not matter much in the relatively easy seventies and eighties; now it does.

It seems that voters at the next election may be presented with at least one small alliance - by which I mean an alliance of politicos who do not present the country with a complete slate of electable candidates, but hope to gain seats in the Cabinet (or even the position of Chief Minister) by horse-trading with one of the parties, secretly before the election, or afterwards - hope also to exert continuing disproportionate influence over government by threatening to change sides and enable the other party to take over. 

Small alliances are even less satisfactory from the country's viewpoint than large ones. Deliberately or not, the involvement of a small alliance makes it harder for voters to see how to exercise their votes to get the government they want; it tends to split the votes of like-minded people (which gives an advantage to those who take a different view), and, if its strategy succeeds, it gives the country an unstable government in which everyone can blame everyone else for not getting the job done and not honouring election promises.

We need to take the party idea to the next stage of development, so that it serves the interests of the people, not just the interests of the politicos. Old-style alliances of politicos, large or small, are not only undemocratic, they are in the present circumstances harmful to the national interest. 

They perpetuate the old horse-trading method of forming a government, and all the instability, trouble and inefficiency to which that can lead. 

Furthermore, as they provide no system of membership participation or oversight, no continuing relationship between the government and those who gave it power, they encourage the autocratic tendency that I criticised in Episode Three, and the secretiveness that was such a problem with government before the 2000 election and had such unfortunate consequences. 

Secret government is never good, but it is downright dangerous when the country has problems such as we now face.

The next episode of Party Time will examine the suggestion that political parties are divisive.

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