A Proposal for Politics without Parties
I believe it is time to seriously rethink the role of political
parties in the electoral process, and indeed in the process of
governance.
My rationale for this view is that parties, which may once have
been enabling organizations for democracy, have now become an
element that constrains good people from seeking public office, and
one that constrains good decision making in public
office.
Organizations and systems do go through life cycles, and I feel
that political parties are mature organizations that have maxed out
their potential for legitimate growth and are beginning to
cannibalize society to sustain themselves and stave off
decline. And as a system, electoral democracy itself
has matured beyond being dependent on political parties for a
supply of candidates and policy ideas.
Some aspects of political parties are probably
inevitable. Grouping with others of like mind is a
normal human behaviour that is not going to go away.
What I think can be altered is either the status of
the political party as a permanent, single-purpose organization, or
the degree to which politicians and voters are bound to
parties.
It is the effective monopoly that political parties have on
access to public office that makes parties such a
liability. One can break this by ensuring that
meaningful runs for public office can be made without party
affiliation.
For governance without a party monopoly, I envision a
legislature of 79 people elected by their ridings who may or may
not be party affiliated, electing a leader and ministers from among
their number, without regard to party, and debating and
implementing policy that is appropriate for the conditions of their
day, not fighting over a party platform that was designed several
years back by non-elected backroom operatives in the luxury of
opposition. I foresee that such a system would result
in each politician carrying real accountability for the outcomes of
their work, rather than sloughing it off onto a party.
After nearly cracking my head coming up with this vision, by the
way, I discovered this is already how government is being run in
Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. But even if we
like it, we cannot simply jump to their model; we need an idea that
will allow for an evolutionary process away from our status quo to
allow a BC version to emerge.
For that transition, I imagine restricting political parties to
doing the one thing they seem able to do well, namely finding new
people and supporting their entry into politics. I
think that people who have run once or perhaps twice under a party
banner should be required to run as independents rather than
drifting into a long-term co-dependent relationship with their
party. This does fundamentally change the business that
political parties are in and will radically alter them as
organizations – it may even render them obsolete, at
best morphing them into private campaign management companies
available for hire. So much the better.
Here are five reasons, stated briefly, why we need not grieve
the loss of political parties and why I hope your recommendations
for reform do not entrench their role in electoral politics:
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Candidates chosen by parties are not those best suited for
governance but those who are good at playing the party game and
good at attracting donations. This does not mean they
cannot be good at governing, but I think they are likely more prone
to cronyism as you have to be networked to attract money and
support, neither of which comes without strings
attached. In any case, individual governance capacity
is not fully exercised because politicians are so fully reliant
upon parties for their re-election that they pursue party approval
above all else. The flip side of cronyism is antipathy
toward opposing parties, which is why I think getting rid of
parties is essential for reducing the polarization of BC
politics.
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Due to their capacity to fund-raise, parties drive the cost of
running for public office out of the reach of any
non-party-affiliated citizens. It does not matter where
parties raise funds from, whether corporations, unions, or
individuals – as organizations they are able to raise
more funds per candidate than an individual candidate or ad hoc
group of candidates can realistically do, rendering the individual
campaign virtually invisible.
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Parties tie different levels of politics together.
One effect has been to generate an alarming pattern of ricochet or
whipsaw politics, where we elected a party in Vancouver to oppose
the government we elected in Victoria, and now the actions of the
Ontario Liberals are going to influence voter decisions there about
federal politics. We should not be hiring consecutive
levels of government to punish each other as a substitute for
putting meaningful diversity and debate into each house of
governance.
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Parties lend themselves to third-party influence and render us
vulnerable to third-party takeover, partly because they provide an
effective shield of true identity, and partly because of their
monopoly status. Far better that we should have open
debate among vested interests such as organized business, labour,
religion, or what have you than between parties fronting for those
interests and speaking in code. And I don’t
think Paul Martin’s recent coup is fully appreciated
for what it is, but it amply illustrates that when parties have a
monopoly, they make a quick and convenient conduit to
power. Even being able to access the opposition benches
is a tempting opportunity.
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Finally, and most dangerously, by attaching party labels to
candidates I think political parties are making the electorate
stupider by relieving us of the necessity of informing ourselves
about candidates. The very landslide nature of the last
provincial election, followed in Vancouver by another landslide,
makes it clear that that people are voting more by label and not by
considering the decision-making capacity of the individuals for
whom they are voting. Political parties have become
like corporations jockeying for candidates and market share,
offering voters no better information about their
“brand” than we are offered about our
beer. Our current status renders eerily prescient this
1944 quote from another opponent of parties, George Bernard
Shaw: “…political ignorance and
idolatry will produce not only Hitleresque dictatorships but
stampedes led by liars or lunatics…”.
There are two important corollaries to getting rid of political
parties.
The first is to create a government-run framework via which
independent candidates can deliver information about themselves to
voters, akin to what a large co-operative, non-profit society, or
professional association does to present candidates to its
members. A website, and a book of
candidates’ statements for each riding, and even-handed
meet-the-candidates events would ensure that voters can find out
what every candidate is offering. No one should be
forced to ally themselves with a political party to make a
meaningful run for public office.
The second is that a new method of electing a premier would have
to be chosen. Either the premier would be elected from
among and by elected MLAs as is currently done in Nunavut and NWT,
or voters would vote separately for candidates for premier, akin to
most mayoralty races today (the Assembly’s mandate
renders only the first option viable). The method of
electing the premier should change in any case. I have
never been able to figure out how to vote for two positions
– MLA and Premier – with one vote, or more
specifically, to cast a vote for a good local candidate without
also voting for a party leader and platform less to my taste.
Finally, one important benefit of busting the party monopoly
– voter engagement, as politics becomes interesting for
a change! We currently have the federal government
spending obscene amounts of money to sell young people on the idea
of voting. But if you listen carefully to young people,
it appears that they are not tired of politics but of partisan
politics in particular.
That is the substance of my comments on political
parties. I have four other small comments to offer.
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I think there is an urgent need to do away with the taking and
reporting of political polls during and between
elections. In keeping with the principle that the
electoral process should force voters to think for themselves and
engage meaningfully with the process, polls are an
abomination. In a worst case scenario, polls discourage
participation, in cases where there is a clear front
runner. Only marginally more tolerable is the way they
stimulate tendencies in people to be either sheep or goats; some
will vote the way everyone else is going to, while others will vote
the opposite just to be different. Neither response
should be confused with intelligent, engaged
citizenship. And as if those effects
weren’t bad enough, at every level of government
we’ve seen desperate politicians and campaign teams
abandon all ideals and principles in pursuit of better polling
numbers; not a behaviour one wishes to encourage.
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I’d like to ask why the entire government turns over
at one time. Organizations as diverse as co-operatives,
non-profit societies, and corporate boards usually opt for
staggered terms among their directors to provide continuity in
leadership. Could we elect half the legislature at a
time, every three years?
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I like preferential balloting instead of
first-past-the-post.
The final thought I’d like to leave you with, as you
go back to grapple with how best to run elections, is the question
of whether elections are really necessary to a democratic system of
government. I’ve put into your package a
copy of an article written by Kevin Potvin, publisher of The
Republic newspaper, which makes this point quite
eloquently. While I doubt this is a change you could
even begin to consider for this round of reform, it is worth
running it up the flagpole to make the point that the day may come
when this is not an unreasonable option.
Consider the Citizens’ Assembly itself. I suspect
that, given a choice between being governed by this panel or by any
provincial government in recent memory, most British Columbians
would choose the panel.
Societies change, and the systems that serve societies must also
change to respond to prevailing conditions. The guiding
principle must be fluidity, wherein we change our practices as our
needs and capacities fluctuate.
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Relevant views in print elsewhere:
“Even the political parties themselves have
increased their dependence on government handouts. They have now
gone beyond the incredibly lucrative tax credits given to their
supporters, combined with massive cash reimbursements for
candidates and parties who receive more than 10 per cent of the
popular, to outright cash gifts. This year, taxpayers are going to
fork over about $58 million directly to the parties. How long do
you think it will take before the rationale for this cash giveaway
will be that the parties can't survive without it?”
. Campbell, Michael: 'Depending on the
Government' The Vancouver Sun, 22 June 2004:
Alford, Toby: 'Dump the Parties' The
Republic # 84, 18 March 2004
Potvin, Kevin: 'Call off Elections' The
Republic # 71, 4 September 2003
Litzcke, Karin: No more Parties, Please!
The Republic #37, 2 May 2002
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