Fred-Rik

As you know, I spent six years as an active volunteer in a Canadian political party--and was slowly becoming disenchanted with the process. I was seeing too much of the energy/time spent inside a political party as a contest for status, influence, and power within that party. This is time/ energy not dedicated to solving problems. The "politics" becomes a distraction for what we should really be doing.

I haven't been on the inside of a PR system. But from what I have read, the same sort of contest is occurring within the political parties of PR systems. There is a contest for leadership, then a contest to be placed high on the list of possible party representatives. So those same negative forces I experience with Canada's FPTP system are still there in PR systems.

We could argue to let the parties do whatever they want internally. If a party cannot display some degree of unity, the voters will cast it aside, giving more electoral success for the other parties who seemingly have their act more together. In this sense, democracy seems to be working.

But I still say that the competition for status, influence, and power is a wrong kind of thinking. And this thinking still permeates inside of government and society-at-large.

I will contend that PR is a superior system than Westminster models. I also believe that a lot of negative effects of Westminster can be mitigated with a ranked-choice ballots, which will allow viable third parties to form and demonstrate their true popular support. And from my understanding of the US constitution, states can implement RCV anytime they want. So this change is quite realizable, when compared to full PR.

But I still say we need to move beyond the contest for status, influence, and power.

In the TDG, representatives rise to the higher levels because of the trust and respect they earned at the lower levels. This is much better criteria than having the ability to work the games of internal party politics.