Even if the third party does come, I can guarantee you that you wouldn’t want to vote for them. Just pray that the PDP members do not resign from the party and politics on the grounds of their last defeat. PDP does have good people and may be if the DPT keeps repeating things like the CDG, PDP is destined to be your next government.

Cheers

You raise very interesting and very important points of substance.

But, first, about the facts. USA, UK and Japan all permit more than 2 parties (and independents) to contest elections and they do so in fact. Election results in these countries have tended to generate 2 dominant parties, but with a coalition of two or more parties needed to form a government from time to time (as demonstrated more recently in the case of Japan and a number of European countries).

You speak of confusion and tension among the people. This is indeed a very important observation, on which we should not lose our focus…

But, I think they have nothing to do with the NUMBER of parties contesting, but everything to do with HOW they contest the elections. It’s about the behavior of party workers at the grass roots. It’s about their respective party’s professed “corporate” principles not permeating deeply into how they work where the machinery hits the road.

So, as in many things, it’s all about the corporate management – how well political parties are managed, to reflect their corporate vision, values, ethics and operating rules throughout the organization in very REAL ways that TOUCH the people.

Frankly speaking, neither parties did well in this management work. I hope they have learned their lessons well, because their management excellence has an enormous and real impact on the wholesome development of our democracy.

On the number of parties themselves …

Monopoly is bad and so is duopoly. Just look at the quality of customer service by any of our large corporations, be they in banking, insurance, electricity, telecommunications … Concentration of power in marketplace tends to end up taking advantage of the very people the very “power” is meant to serve. Ditto, in politics.

But, a number of suppliers in a marketplace alone won’t lead to customer satisfaction. Consumers have to be well informed about their choice. This is why one finds consumer organizations in mature market economies all over the world. Ditto, again, in politics.

Citizens have to be well informed about their political choice. A number of parties alone won’t solve the imbalance of power between the organized politicians and disorganized citizens, UNLESS information about the political choice is easily made available to the electorates in ways that is credibly independent of politics.

What we need, badly, is politically independent civil society organizations that work to create a well-informed citizenry.