Political Parties Advantages

Political parties are not useful to have at a local government level. Local government exist to provide services and protect property, they are not designed to decide major social policies. If Nanaimo were to be given the task of deciding if our central bank were to go back to using the gold standard to attempt to reduce inflation for the betterment of the poor or other decisions along those lines then it would be useful to elect a party has defined political leanings. Since no city would, and should, ever have to make such decisions, political parties should be out of the question. It simplifies voting, increases diversity, prevents filibustering, and they will not be able to serve their purpose. Once explained those four reasons should be enough to at least give strong support as to why parties are not necessary. The reason why not having political parties on the local level simplifies voting is simple. The voter would not look for a candidate that has a platform that they like and need to make sure that the party that the candidate is affiliated with is agreeable to their political ideal. Without parties the voter would only need to find a candidate that will do what they think is important. As an extreme example, if a local candidate were to run on the idea of lowering taxes, but was affiliated with an anarchy party for whatever reason, that would throw people off. Voters that would like to vote for a person who would lower taxes would likely not vote for that person because they are affiliated with an anarchy party. Not having parties simplifies voting decisions as the voter votes on a person by person basis, not a person and party one. Not having political parties potentially has the potential to increase platform diversity. …show more content…
When a person runs for office they are likely to join a party. The party helps the candidate and gives the candidate political connections. What is required though is that the candidate conforms to the political leanings of the party. What that can do is affect the candidate’s platform. For example if a park-loving candidate were to join the fictitious Gogo party the candidate would probably have to not run on spending money on parks but have to run on spending money on concert halls. So by not having political parties every candidate can run on whatever idea they think that needs to be addressed instead of being forced to run on policies that fall in-line with the parties. Thus there is the potential to increase diversity of platforms. If there are political parties involved what can happen is filibustering. Governments are notorious for it. The United States government shutdown because of the Republican Party was filibustering over the Budget. As will be discussed below, parties will not achieve their goals locally, but party politics will still happen. If there is fighting between two parties at a higher level in can spill over to the local level and the parties can filibuster each other to spite each other. With little to no benefits of having parties but still having their problems there is no reason to have them on a local level as they could fight with each other with no end goal. At a local level political parties would not be able to achieve their goals to the degree parties at the provincial and federal level could.