The Basic Forms Of Tyranny-Part Seven (Political Multi-Party Tyranny)

The Basic Forms Of Tyranny-Part Seven (Political Multi-Party Tyranny)

This tyranny is endemic in parliamentary democracies. In the USA there are two major political parties that dominate governance. In parliamentary democracies there are many political parties in comparison. In India for example, there exists 6 national parties, 54 state parties,and 2,597 unrecognised parties.

In Italy there are over 20 parties and 10 sub-parties represented in the Italian or European Parliament. Italy has over 40 regional parties, 60 non-represented national parties, and over 40 non-represented regional and local parties. In Ireland, a nation of five million people, there are 16 political parties with representation at a local, national or European level and nine parties with no elected representation.

In a parliamentary democratic republic, there are many political parties. Because of this phenomenon, the electorate more often than not votes for the political party and not for the individual candidate. In many, if not most cases, voters do not even know the name of the individual candidate unless that candidate is an independent.

In this government system, it is very hard for an independent to get elected because the people who get elected have to choose the head executive of the state and central/federal government. This is due to the fact political party members of either the state or central/federal parliament almost exclusively choose their own member to be the next head executive at either the state or central/federal level. Most but not all voters do not care to vote for a wild card. They would rather vote for a member of a specific party in the state or central/federal parliamentary elections so that another member of that specific party gets chosen as the next state (chief minister) or central/federal (prime minister) head executive.

In this form of government there is no trifurcation of government. The elected officeholder in parliament serves as legislator and in many cases serves in the executive branch agencies. The head executive of both the state and central/federal government, chosen by members of either the state or central/federal parliament, also has to be first elected to parliament in his/her district.

The tendencies for tyranny are evident. Tyranny sprouts because votes are pressured to vote for political parties rather than for individual candidates. This obviously gives the head officials of political parties an excessive amount of power. The preceding practices dilute representative governance as individual candidates becomes puppets to the party establishment rather than become potential full-fledged servants of their constituents.

Just as importantly, when an officeholder serves in both branches of government, this suppresses Separation Of Powers and Checks and Balances. This also creates undue politicking, bickering, and power jockeying. In representative governance, conflicts of interest and co-mingling of powers must not take place. Yet in this system, these factors are pronounced. Tyranny results because of the foregoing in the paragraph.

Finally a political multi-party system often suppresses majoritarianism. While abject majority rule should not overwhelm the body politic, majority governance is needed in appropriate occasions to support the Republic for which a nation stands. In parliamentary democracy, because of the need to forge coalitions, more often than not the head executive of the state and central/federal government and perhaps even his/her political party lack the plurality of support of the electorate throughout either the state or nation. The support he/she and perhaps his/her political party receive is less than what other candidate(s) receive and also maybe less than what other political parties receive. Yet they get chosen for the head executive positions (CM or PM) through power brokering amongst parliamentarians and mainly political party bosses. When this happens, most if not all, of his/her choices for bureaucratic positions belong to the same party that the head executive belongs. The preceding breeds tyranny as the ideals of Representative Governance are defeated.