Politics and number of parties
By emmiszoe
@emmiszoe (444)
Sweden
November 20, 2006 3:23pm CST
I am curious about how many parties are part of your countrys government! In my country we have 7 parties of different sizes that are part of the government (and a number of smaller parties that are not big enough to make it over 4% in the elections). But I have come to realise that some countries, although big and important countries, only have two or three parties (England for egsample have three, odn't they?).
How many do you have in your country? And do you think it's good or bad with few or many?
1 person likes this
3 responses
@kiiizu (1901)
• Estonia
20 Nov 06
I had to make a little research on the Internet to answer that question. Estonia is much smaller than Sweden but I could find 12 parties (at least these parties who have a homepage), and about couple of them I was never heard before, despite I'm interested in politics and reading newspapers every day. Most of them are very small and without any importance, and obviously never will reach over 4%, to get into Parlament (we are calling it Riigikogu). We have 3 parties in our government, and actually they are very different, so our government is a quite strange thing. Or according one of Murphy's laws: necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows...
@emmiszoe (444)
• Sweden
20 Nov 06
hihi for the last sentence...
I think it must be similar to Sweden then, we also have loads of parties that are to small to get into parliament. It's interesting what you say, that your three big parties are very different from each others! It's always interesting to see what happens here if the parties suddenly have to collaborate with a party they don't usually work with! Well, when it works well, it's a good thing, as long as the can get along at least reasonably with each other... lol
@srhelmer (7029)
• Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
20 Nov 06
We only have two dominant political parties. There are several smaller parties but they rarely win any important positions.
I think we need at least one more major political party, perhaps a moderate party that falls somewhere in between the Republicans and Democrats. That way you don't have the partisan deadlock you have now.
@emmiszoe (444)
• Sweden
20 Nov 06
Thank you for your response! I checked you profile to see where you were from,ev en though I guessed the US when you wrote about Republicans and Democrats.
I agree with that you would need one more big party - preferably one between the two others. I personally think that more parties are better, at least up to a certain point. Otherwise you'll never get past these deadlocks and also never get any compromising done, which means a lot of decisions are seen completelly black-and-shite, although our society of course is made up of lots of different greys!
