Dear Editor
Like many others, I’ve been considering for some time what can be done to change our political landscape.
The other evening I had an idea triggered by a conversation with one of my five brothers. What about a ‘No Confidence’ Party? One of our problems is that our ballot papers do not have a ‘No Confidence’ option, but we could put one on them in the form of a party.
For a long time I’ve been hearing from voters that they voted for X party because they don’t like the Y party. Turns out they don’t like any party, but they really really dislike the Y party. This has been a dilemma for me too. What to do when you can’t support any party?
I have also been aware that a large portion of the population doesn’t vote. Many of them because they hate our political system, are rightfully distrustful of politicians and have become totally disenfranchised. These eligible voters are a significant portion of our voting population and they deserve a ‘No Confidence’ option at the polling booth.
After hearing my case, my father pointed out that people will vote “for” something rather than for nothing. He is mostly right, except for those of us not wanting to support any party, but don’t want the Y party, and those who may vote out of a feeling of duty but really want to vote against the system if they could.
What if we registered a ‘No Confidence Party’ where our bottom line policies included always being in opposition, never in government, never in coalition and never party to any confidence and supply agreement? We could be an effective opposition party that holds the government to account, slows down overzealous ideologues in Cabinet and genuinely represents the disenfranchised.
If nothing else, we could hamstring change, which would be good considering the direction of change over my lifetime.
The party would only need a small percentage to disrupt the power game. 5-10% of the vote, not from any particular quartile of the political spectrum, and preferably from the disenfranchised irregular voters. A few percent would mean neither half of the usual political alliances would have enough to form a government on their own. This would force them to work together and would stop the government from using party politics to implement the fringe policies of a handful of power-drunk party leaders.
Or the worst could happen and the two major parties could form a grand coalition of incompetence and authoritarian rule.
In the current circumstances, maybe it’s worth a try as a last-ditch effort. A few percent would be a strong indicator to parliament that there is significant discontent and they need to smarten up.
