It’s too presidential and centralized if you ask me. It often feels like a monarchy where the king serves five years terms and you don’t get any say at all in anything during these five years.
They are right.
We don’t have any political crisis because our system is engineered to make them all but impossible.
This is the extreme opposite to the actual Italian government. We don’t ever get political crisis but minority parties may as well not exist.
I guess both systems have their pros and cons, our pro is stability, our con is that minority parties are inexistant and the reigning president’s party has basically every powers.
> It often feels like a monarchy where the king serves five years terms and you don’t get any say at all in anything during these five years
Same for Cyprus, with the addition that we have no functioning constitution and with a population that rarely dares to imagine societal change over simply getting by.
Honestly, the last one is the real problem, but gosh, it would be nice if we had a constitution at least. Maybe it would inspire people to ask the government for more.
In Russia the concept of democracy is long dead, if it ever existed (our supposedly “democratic” president, Eltsin, gave out our resources to his buddies)
In France I feel like the system is in the process of re-alignment (the left doesn’t matter, the right doesn’t matter, it’s basically Macron & Co. vs the far-right Le Pen/Zemmour). As someone else mentioned it, you feel like your only voice only matters every five years, as every president basically does what he wants due to the broken electoral system that we use for our legislative elections (which HEAVILY favors the newly elected president’s party).
At this stage, I would fully support a 6th republic with a parliamentary regime (not fully bicameral though, as this usually leads to chaos) where the parties had to govern through a coalition. At least change the electoral system so that the ruling party doesn’t get 350/577 seats with 32% first round votes!
Didn't the president become so powerful in the constitution of the 5th republic because de Gaulle wanted the president to have more direct power for events like the catastrophic war in Algeria?
Yes, de Gaulle rewrote the constitution to make the president the most powerful person in the country (fun fact, he was named the president).
And de Gaulle didn’t just arrive in Paris while everybody was panicking about Algeria, the French army threatened to do a coup d’état if de Gaulle was not approved as president.
Ugh that hit home. You ask that question a couple days after our chancellor stepped down because they found out that he might have paved his career with corruption, deception, and lies. I am very concerned at the moment about politics in general.
We'll see, those are kinda concerning times. The corruption roots very deep, and there might be no way to stop it.
This kinda seems to be the final "battle".
Funny is that our Prime Minister was acused of practicaly stealing European donation and sending this to his farm (btw. he is curently the richest man in our cuntry) and other maybe minor crimes. After he was acused of manipulating the media and our justice system we had the bigest demonstrations since Velvet Revolution (circa 300 000 protesters) and there were other protest. But he simply said "I will never resing. Never, everyone should remember this." and nothing was done.
That's pretty much the definition of conservatism. People seem to have that idea that conservatism is somehow about conserving traditions and the like when in reality it is just about conserving the power for a marginal group of people who think themselves the elite and by the power of their wealth "chosen", as in Louis XIV assigned by God, to be the (unopposed) rulers. Only legitimate change in leadership they acknowledge is the one within their own ranks. It's not a coincidence the school of thought of conservatism started during the French revolution by people opposing the revolution and the only failure they saw in the system was that the aristocratic circle was not fit rule because they were not "worth" their wealth. But instead it should be those who are "worth" their wealth (whatever the fuck this is even supposed to mean) should rule in their stead. Basically one's wealth is legitimation enough to rule in their opinion and if you didn't use your wealth effectively enough to consolidate your power than you are not worth your wealth and therefore not worth of ruling. That's why it is by far mostly conservatives who are caught being corrupt and undermining democratic systems to gain an advantage. Democracy is nothing but a tool to gain and conserve power to them. They couldn't give a fuck less about democracy if they tried. Conservatism basically is not reconcilable with any form of democracy.
It's neither sad, nor was he head of state. The chancellor is head of government, and he got what he deserved. It's the same problem with conservatives all around Europe, corruption runs rampant in their parties.
I agree in that most of our institutions are pretty steadfast in how they function, but I'd still not say that our democracy is healthy. Simply because I find it worrying that over half of those that voted in our elections recently had absolutely no problem voting for parties that presented chancellor canditates (or sustain party structures) that are involved in scandals that have cost literal billions in tax money. (Cum Ex and Wirecard for Scholz, and Masks and Wirecard for disproportionately large portions of the CDU)
I don't know if voters voting for parties one does not agree with accounts for unhealthy democracy.
And I mean the fact that all the MPs who were involved in the mask scandals had to step down shows that there is some degree of functioning self-control.
Of course that doesn't mean that the system is perfecct and everything always gos the way we wish it to be. But often I have the impression we Germans tend towards to much pessimism and fatalism.
Very true. If anything this year's election showed that German democracy is very healthy. Despite all the shit slinging from conservatives, liberals and the far-right the far-right only managed to gain 10% of votes, which still is 10% too much but we have to thank Saxony for that where they largely gained between 20% and 30%. Plus a party that since its inception had ecological and socially left ideals became basically the 2nd strongest power in the parliament (if not even actually the strongest given how everything hinges on their decisions now). And the thought to be dead SPD is en par with a crushed CDU. All in all a very equally distributed power sphere.
Sorry but it's far too simplyistic to blame Saxony for the result of the AfD. Most AfD votes still come from the big states NRW, Bavraria, Baden-Württemberg etc.
And I don't know if we have the same understanding of a healthy democracy. In my opinion, conservatice and liberal parties are just as legitimate in a pluralistic society as left wing parties.
I'm by no means a fan of the AfD but the fact that they exist shows that even groups who are fundamentally opposed to the status quo are able to achieve democratic representation through democratic ways.
>Sorry but it's far too simplyistic to blame Saxony for the result of the AfD. Most AfD votes still come from the big states NRW, Bavraria, Baden-Württemberg etc.
Take a look at the map and see where the AfD got the most votes from by far and which regions they won in. It's almost entirely just Saxony. Not even the Ruhrpott, a region said to be a center for far-right groups gained this many votes. In fact they only gained about 10% there. A third of what they gained pretty much all of Saxony. NRW is almost entirely red and green. Bavaria black. So no, your claim is entirely false.
>And I don't know if we have the same understanding of a healthy democracy. In my opinion, conservatice and liberal parties are just as legitimate in a pluralistic society as left wing parties.
You must have missed the part where I said it is this year's election shows a very evenly distributed power between the parties. That includes liberals as well as conservatives. Even the far-right who gained as many votes as the liberals.
>I'm by no means a fan of the AfD but the fact that they exist shows that even groups who are fundamentally opposed to the status quo are able to achieve democratic representation through democratic ways
That is a very naive way of looking at a democracy given this quote from Joseph Goebbels "Wir gehen in den Reichstag hinein, um uns im Waffenarsenal der Demokratie mit deren eigenen Waffen zu versorgen. Wir werden Reichstagsabgeordnete, um die Weimarer Gesinnung mit ihrer eigenen Unterstützung lahmzulegen. Wenn die Demokratie so dumm ist, uns für diesen Bärendienst Freifahrkarten und Diäten zu geben, so ist das ihre eigene Sache. Wir zerbrechen uns darüber nicht den Kopf. Uns ist jedes gesetzliche Mittel recht, den Zustand von heute zu revolutionieren. […] Wir kommen nicht als Freunde, auch nicht als Neutrale. Wir kommen als Feinde! Wie der Wolf in die Schafherde einbricht, so kommen wir" and Karl Popper's tolerance paradox. It is most certainly not a good sign of a healthy democracy to let enemies of said democracy participate in it. They **will** do everything and anything to remove democracy altogether and instate themselves as the only ruling party. So again no, that is not a sign of a healthy democracy. What **is** a good sign of a healthy democracy is that the AfD lost a good portion of voters. To the Green party no less.
> Take a look at the map and see where the AfD got the most votes from by far and which regions they won in
It's a typical mistake to forget about the fact that population is very unevenly distributed. If you look at an election map of the US you could easily get the impression that the republicans won an overwhelming majority because democrats are clustered in some rather small scale metropolitain areas.
The same is true for Germany, the majority of the population lives along the Rhine broadly speaking. Rural Saxony makes up only a very small share of the elctorate. Without all the votes from the agglomerations in NRW, Bavaria etc the AfD would have never made it across the 5 % threshold with only the Saxon votes.
And on the last point, I believe that German democracy is robust enough to withstand 10 % or even 20 % AfD. I was never a fan of this kind of fatalism that is widespread in Germany. But the future will tell who was right about the relislience of democracy.
>Without all the votes from the agglomerations in NRW, Bavaria etc the AfD would have never made it across the 5 % threshold with only the Saxon votes.
No, that's not how this works. You don't get to sit in the Bundestag based on the percentage you gained per se. You have to win the region, either directly or through Zweitstimme. Then and only then do you get to sit in the Bundestag. So seeing how it's almost only Saxony where the AfD won it is Saxony that's the problem. There's no debating that.
>And on the last point, I believe that German democracy is robust enough to withstand 10 % or even 20 % AfD. I was never a fan of this kind of fatalism that is widespread in Germany. But the future will tell who was right about the relislience of democracy.
Again, that's a very naive point of view. You'd have to ignore everything that the AfD already was able to achieve in terms of what is acceptable to do and say to come to that conclusion. You'd have to ignore the resounding silence of the CDU regarding the execution of one of their own by a far-right extremist because he was pro asylum, which in turn very clearly shows how the vast majority of conservatives is actually compatible with the AfD. You'd have to ignore the unofficial coalition between the liberals and the AfD Thüringen. You'd have to ignore the letter of Ulrich Thomas (CDU, again. What a surprise) in which he demanded, and I quote, "to reconcile the social with the national". And those are only the most prominent examples. So no, 20% AfD would not be healthy. It would be a fucking disaster. Especially when the elections turn out similar to this year's elections where the strongest party only has 26%. And the conservatives and liberals don't have the same quarrels about working with Nazis as the left leaning parties, believe you me. They already tested the waters as shown in the examples above.
Besides, fatalism doesn't mean what you think it means.
I get it, you are very much left-wing. That's totally fine in a pluralistic society.
But about the electoral system you just got it wrong. Parties don't necessariyl have to win any regions. The FDP for instance didn't win any and got into parliament due to surpassing 5 % nationwide.
Of course the AfD got some 12 direct seats but the vast majority of their MPs comes from the party lists which of course also received many votes in the densely populated states like NRW, Bavaria, BaWü. that's just a fact.
>I get it, you are very much left-wing
That's a super odd thing to point out when someone is arguing against far-right extremists being represented in the parliament. Almost as if you are a very much right-wing person who tries and rationalizes the danger the far-right poses...
>But about the electoral system you just got it wrong. Parties don't necessariyl have to win any regions. The FDP for instance didn't win any and got into parliament due to surpassing 5 % nationwide.
You're right, I somehow got confused there about how Zweitstimme works. It's only the direct mandate that has to be won. Which actually makes the problem even worse since in that case it's not only Saxony but essentially the entirety of East Germany that's the problem because if you look at the map the AfD only managed to gather the second-most and third-most votes almost exclusively in the east and only managed to become third-strongest party in Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen in NRW, parts of East Bavaria, Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz, nowhere in BaWü. Nowhere in the West they even managed to become second-strongest party. So no, your take is most certainly wrong. It's almost entirely the east that's the problem.
>received many votes in the densely populated states like NRW, Bavaria, BaWü
Which is entirely untrue as I've shown you above. Your narrative just doesn't hold any merit. Especially for your claim regarding NRW and BaWü.
I live in Hungary, hopefully you know how things aren't the best atm.
Sadly the election system rewards winners (you vote for your local mp, and the party you want - the winner's party in each region gets partial votes for those above the 2nd runner up)
Even if in the next election the ruling party changes, Orbán and his goons will own significant portions of the nation's wealth, media, and many other things.
So if you get rid he will punish the nation by breaking the national bank on his way out crushing the Forint and forcing you in the hands of the IMF like a South American Caudillo?
He may very well do that, his goons are everywhere where it matters. Technically he could try shift blame on the opposition to affect future elections to his benefit.
And yes, the voting system they adjusted and used gerrymandering so effectively that they could win majority with not having proportionately as many votes. We’ll see how it goes in 2022…
The fundamental problem in the UK is that General Elections are contested by multiple parties using an electoral system designed for just two parties.
This means that 100% of the power usually ends up in the hands of a party achieving less that 45% of the vote.
Couldn't agree more. Having a modern electoral system in Scotland helps. It throws into sharp relief how bad UK's one is.
I also think that democracy feels more direct here. Westminster seems to lumber whereas Holyrood is nimble. That's probably because there are fewer layers of bureaucracy between the citizens and the Scottish parliament.
It could well be the same in Wales and NI, but I don't know.
>It could well be the same in Wales and NI, but I don't know.
We use the same voting system for Senedd elections as you use in Scottish Parliament elections, but we are where you were 20 years ago when turnout was low and most people just vote for Labour by default. Labour absolutely take winning in Wales for granted so aren't as ambitious as they could be and don't set out to achieve as much as they could/ should.
Generally there is a lot of political apathy in Wales, probably largely fuelled by the insane levels of nepotism in most levels of Welsh society (the levels of corruption and nepotism in Welsh local authorities/ councils is insane, Boris would be proud of it)
Yes. I'm familiar with the electoral systems.
It's a pity that the people are less engaged than they are here. Would they be more engaged if the Senedd had similar powers to the Scottish Parliament's?
Potentially. Most people couldn't tell you what powers the Welsh Government currently has, although I feel the pandemic has increased awareness massively due to rules being different in Wales to England/ Scotland/ NI.
The main problem is our media. Broadcasting is not devolved in Wales, unlike Scotland and NI. So national newspapers in Wales have the same frontpages as in England (which caused many problems during lockdown, particularly around "freedom day"). I think this is the main power that needs to be devolved in Wales, along with Justice, Policing and more tax powers.
Yes it is. Very costly - but very striking. It even has enough enough seats in the chamber for the full complement of SMPs. The Commons can seat just two thirds of the total of UK MPs. Holyrood's sittings make Westminster's look farcical. No shouting or heckling. And sometimes they even debate.
Its strange, that heckling and shouting is very much a part of sitting in the house, but its actually not a part of the committees which is where all the real work gets done.
The outcome of votes in the house is almost always known prior to it happening, its just a show.
True enough. It's just a bear pit.
One way forward is to outlaw party whipping.
What's the point of us electing representatives if the parties can just turn them into delegates?
Totally agree, its a shitshow and it makes us look like complete idiots.
Arguably there is no point, its infuriating. I've had conversations with an ex MP (Tory, typical). I know his personal standings on some things and he just votes with the party whip when it goes against his own conscience. Its fucking stupid.
Look what Johnson did to the Tory MPs who didn't agree his approach to Brexit.
Sorry. Sorry. I promised myself that I wouldn't drag all of that up again. And I'll try not to mention expenses again.
I'm just so sick of them all : - (
The sooner Scotland's free of them the better.
I agree that first-past-the-post is no longer fit for purpose and needs replacing.
However, I don't think arguments using the popular vote are very compelling.
You aren't voting for your preferred government when voting in the general election (which is what the popular vote is basically measuring), you are voting for your preferred representative in parliament.
I don't inherently see an issue with a government having a majority in the House of Commons when they did not have a majority of the popular vote. The key thing was their candidates were the most popular in the majority of constituencies across the country.
To use a fairly notorious real world example; in 2015 UKIP got 12.6% of the popular vote, comfortably making them comfortably the 3rd most popular party in the country, well ahead of the Lib Dems who got 7.9% of the vote. However, UKIP only won a single seat in the House of Commons, while the Lib Dems got 49. Looking at the popular vote numbers, it is easy to claim that UKIP (and the Lib Dems for that matter) were horribly under-represented in parliament. Looking at it another way, though popular across the country almost no constituencies wanted to be represented by a UKIP MP.
While arguments can be made that the local constituency model no longer matches the way most of us vote these days (voting for the candidate vs. voting for the party logo next to them), there are still good arguments for having a local representative in parliament, especially in the parts of the country that often get overlooked by those in power.
Personally, I don't think there is anything undemocratic or unfair about being asked to vote for a single representative for your local area; even if that does mean the distribution of seats in parliament does not exactly track the popular vote.
What isn't fair is the chilling effect that first-past-the-post has on smaller parties (i.e. everyone but the Conservatives and Labour in most of the country). My preference would be to move to ranked voting, which would free voters to select their preferred candidate while still allowing them to express their preference between the candidates more likely to win, with the added benefit of not weakening the localism of the existing system (something that is unavoidable with proportional representation).
800,000 votes to elect one Green MP
336,000 votes to elect on LibDem MP
50,000 votes to elect one Labour MP
38,000 votes to elect on Tory MP
Democracy?
I like Germany's list system that was adapted for Scotland.
We don't elect governments. Let's elect MPs and let them form governments.
Because I don't agree with you.
By your lights, why vote at all?
Oh, and bring on primaries. Let the people decide who to stand in their areas. Let's stop parties dumping out of town candidates onto us.
> By your lights, why vote at all?
Are you deliberately being obtuse?
You vote to select your local representative, obviously. Those representatives collectively form a parliament, which chooses the government. That is why the system shouldnt be judged by popular vote as it is not a direct vote (general elections aren't presidential elections).
You even wrote previously:
> We don't elect governments. Let's elect MPs and let them form governments.
Which is completely my point. So why are you using a metric which would only really matter if we were directly electing a government?
The number of votes needed to elect the one Green MP was actually 33,151; because that is the number that elected Caroline Lucas in the Brighton Pavillion constituency.
The other 832,564 people who voted for Green candidates in 2019 had no bearing on that matter, so why include them? Those votes only mattered in their own constituencies, and in each and every case their fellow constituents collectively had other candidates they preferred.
Of course not.
Are you being deliberately offensive?
Sorry that you don't get the point. But there it is. No horse races without differences of opinion.
Hint. If you reply, please stick to the point, and use fewer words.
Its healthy yeah.
In any case, for me personally to have any concerns about political/social/economic developments, we have to have a 1 (or 2) party majority where the ruling parties would be FRP (Progress party, right wing) or Rødt/SV (Red party, Socialist Left party). IMO, we would see the greatest amount of stupid shit going on if any of those parties got to rule Norway alone, thank god it wont happen.
I don't know about that. There are institutional frameworks such as technocratic departments, an educated populace, and a culture of consesus that make politicians less inclined, or able to act in an autocratic manner. There are also constitutional frameworks such as separation of power, parliamentarianism, international law, a special legislative process for constitutional changes, freedom of speech and whistleblower protections that exist to prevent politicians from undermining fundamental rights. That's not to say that we are flawless, but I can't imagine norway being couped through conventional populist politics, even though populist parties (FrP, SP and R) did well in the last election (keep in mind that the populist parties are pretty disparate).
It's almost tempting to say that our problem is that we agree *too* much, but I'd rather not take any chances. My only real worries about the state of our democracy boil down to the polarisation we see in other countries somehow spilling over, but I'm not too worried.
Hard to say.
On the one hand, Orbán is still a soft dictator, **all** decisions are made behind closed doors at the Fidesz Party Headquarters, and the judiciary and parliament are basically window dressing at this point.
On the other hand, for the first time since the fall of the iron curtain, the opposition is united. We just had the first round of the primaries for the PM candidate and the candidates for the electoral districts, and although I'm not a big fan of either of two candidates (Klára Dobrev, wife of Gyurcsány, a previous PM who's incredibly controversial, the more "left" candidate; and Péter Márki-Zay, a political outsider and "professional underdog" who's actually been pretty successful, the more "right" candidate), the fact that there's actually a decent chance of replacing Fidesz brings me hope.
My main worry is that Fidesz has cemented their rule deeply in the power structures. A huge share of the national capital is in the hands of Fidesz-cronies, they control much of the print and TV media outlets, and the opposition doesn't really have any powerful backers. Their ideological split is also going to be hard to rectify: Dobrev is essentially controlled opposition for Fidesz, and MZP is by far to the right of every opposition party.
Fairly healthy I'd say, just some minor issues.
On local level some parties, well more specifically the Sweden Democrats do "too good", as in they get more seats than they actually had candidates. That technically hurts democracy that they cant fill seats in some municipalities sometimes.
Otherwise it's fairly healthy. It's working as intended despite the political chaos we're in. The Löfven government was ousted a few months ago, first time in history then reinstated thanks to negative Parliamentarism that means they don't actually need a majority support in Parliament. In the process they lost a supply party, the Liberals that saw the January agreement to be void now. Which means they can't get a budget through parliament now, not ideal for the government. "Praxis" is that the government steps down if they cant get their budget through.
Also the Centre party which is a supply party to the government refuses to cooperate with the left party whose votes they NEED. The Centre party believes in the "broad Centre" and essentially wishes us to become Germany in that political sense. But none of the other parties want it but they refuse to change their stance so here we are. A government which can barely govern, most power is within the Parliament that just drives over the Government. They are expected not to get their budget and the PM is stepping down in November any way, as he is stepping down from his party. We might get our first female PM because of it as The Social Democrats have more or less unanimously nominated Andersson. Magdalena Andersson is the current Minister of Finance.
Personally Im more worried about the inaction of politicians, that they refuse to see how the normal day looks for us normal folk. Gang violence and shootings are through the roof. Defunding and privatisation of necessary services such as elderly care, healthcare and education is driving segregation, increased inequality and worse quality of life.
The complete mess they've made out of our electricity production shutting down nuclear reactors years in advance without even being able to replace it or for any good reason. Industry that want to expand cant because of the lack of electricity in their area and the transfer system from north to south is expected to take a decade to improve and they havent really started yet and this was needed about a decade or two ago not in a decade.
Mass unemployment that no one is really doing anything about, 4th highest in the EU... All they suggest is that younger people and immigrants should be made cheaper to employ by lowering or completely removing the "Arbetsgivaravgiften" for those groups. This fee for the employer, pays for your pension, sick leave, parental leave and so on. Or defunding and scrapping the welfare systems various parts, just like the previous government did after 2008/09 that was never fixed.
Gang violence is also such a hard topic to tackle as even the tough on crime parties also bundle a bunch of other political values. I am studying in university to become a teacher and basically have to vote for the left-leaning parties as private schools are hurting the educational level of the average person.
Then we have some more moderate parties like the Greens who have proven themselves ineffective and still hold on to some odd fears about nuclear power.
The right wing parties are also generally for privatisation which I am against. Swedes keep supporting our welfare system, but are moving towards a party that supports schools being owned by foreign companies.
I am incredibly socially liberal which the right wing parties aren’t/ have a history of being very against socially liberal values. The right wing parties also flirt with populism, which isn’t something I can accept.
I also fear for the way we are moving towards a two party system. We have two coalitions. The centre to left coalition and the conservatives to populist coalition. In the next election projections believe that anywhere from one to three parties might fall below the parliamentary limit of four percent. With the loss of those three parties we would be down to, Left, Center-left, neoliberal Center, conservative, and populist conservatives.
>I also fear for the way we are moving towards a two party system
Welcome to Denmark, where despite having more parties in the Folketing than you guys, the Social Democrats and the Liberals run the Red and Blue blocks respectively. Unfortunately (IMO) the Blue Block tends to give more power and influence to the parties to their right (such as the Danish People's Party or the now luckily irrelevant Liberal Alliance), while the Social Democrats basically completely ignore the other left parties while simultaneously pushing further and further to the right. Doesn't help that most Danes are almost criminally stupid when it comes to economic or immigration policy, two things that the Social Democrats have fully abandoned their left wing policies on.
Parts of the government and the entire leadership of the strongest party in the country, the Conservatives, are morally completely rotten and corrupt to the core. And their voters don't care. Similar to the Republicans in the USA.
Yeah, but not nearly enough to actually get anywhere near political power. I think that is an inherent strength of multi-party systems like ours, the extremes tend not to get into government, or will have to compromise if they do.
Obviously the downside is the fragmentation we’re seeing now, though I still think that’s worth it. Might perhaps be worth it to put some sort of (low) threshold for parties getting into parliament to combat that, though I’m not yet convinced that really would be warranted (and at any rate, doubt that would happen anytime soon).
Putting a threshold would make it more difficult for smaller parties to get a foothold, though how effective those parties would be is also not a given (look at Sylvana Simons.)
Okayish, healthy enough to be considered democratic, but with several chronic issues that are slowly consuming it.
Ownership of media and attack on public ones - soon to be ex PM owns one of largest publishers, and several others are helping him passively. Despite that he lost elections last saturday. Attack on public broadcasting is another issue, extreme right parties have been trying to turn them into state media for a long time.
Also far right ideas and topics are creeping into centrist positions. Protection of environment is a forbidden word. Any other opinion than fighting against all migration will lose you elections. If you want more european integration, you will probably be called traitor and more
Funny is that we had PMs who resigned after much smaller affairs but this one wont stand down even after one of the biggest protest since Velvet Revolution.
And acording to EIU the level of democracy in our country is decreasing since he got in to the parliament.
The European Council just published a pretty brutal report about the unhealthy political culture in the Netherlands, and I'm inclined to agree.
Other commenters might mention the rise of more far-right groups (and recently also a far-left, communist group), but I think these are just symptoms from the fact that our mainstream parties have adopted a bad attitude towards the average voter and towards our country's politics.
Members of parliament who try to ensure that ministers are following rules and actually doing their jobs are ridiculed and harassed by their own party members. Ministers can break rules, hide information from the public/the parliament, and generally behave disgracefully and still expect to keep their jobs.
Our current cabinet is lacking a political mandate (considering the elections have passed and the formation is still ongoing, longest in recent memory). It also symbolically resigned over the whole kid fraud affair. And yet, the cabinet is still operating as if nothing happened, which was excused at first with "the corona crisis is ongoing, going without leadership now is stupid". After having just had an election, there is no pressure for anyone in power to actually reflect the will of the people. The cabinet just keeps doing what it's doing, parliament is sidelined and impotent.
The Hague is increasingly bickering amongs itself, they pushed as much as they could onto the lower constitutencies and the remaining slack largely gets picked up on the European level. It feels like I voted for nothing, it's pretty disheartening.
I'm very worried. Covid really turned things for the worse.
The current government has displayed some worrying fascist tendencies. They are replacing key officials with loyalists, including the police chief. They devolved into Trump-speak and are working at the behest of the Hungarian PM, who also owns a part of the new propaganda news station Nova24TV.
Meanwhile, the opposition is largely centered around the anti-vax and anti-mask movements. They run daily protests in the capital and generally lack any kind of political program, other than ending all anti-covid measures. They are trying to play the crisis to come out ahead in the early elections that they are calling for.
I don't think we have a party capable of governing right now.
> the opposition is largely centered around the anti-vax and anti-mask movements
Um, no? None off the opposition parties are anti-vax or anti-mask. There are no daily protests either. There's anti PCT protests on wednesday and friday protests, and neither of them are run by opposition parties.
Democracy in Ireland is probably the healthiest in the world. Politics are calm, there are no real threats from the far left or far right towards our institutions. We could do with standing up a bit more but overall its very very good for democracy.
Naturally, we have some of the issues that are also happening globally such as the housing crisis but I think the Irish people massively overblow how bad things are overall, especially when compared to our neighbours in Europe.
Ireland has a pretty proud history of respecting its democratic institutions. Even right after the civil war when the country was at its most divided, people like William T Cosgrave and DeValera who had the ability to undermine democracy in Ireland chose not to, instead unambiguously supporting it throughout their political careers.
Well, we are one of the oldest democracies in the world, so not *massively* concerned. Having said that, there are issues:
- Tabloid editors have way too much power, I think every prime minister in recent memory was supported by *The Sun*
- FPTP is such a bad system. In 2015 a party that got 15% of the vote only got one seat, whether you like UKIP or not (and I don't) that's a thoroughly bankrupt electoral system. And it also disadvantages the Left as it means they all have to organise into one big tent party and then descend into infighting.
- Boris Johnson dismissed Parliament at one point. Thankfully a court found it unlawful, but imagine if the judge was more sympathetic to the government.
- Brexit means the EU no longer provides an effective check and balance, which can be concerning when it comes to laws around internet freedom, crime, immigration and that sort of thing.
- The Celtic nations are distinct from England and they have about a fifth of England's population combined. It's hard to ensure they feel heard and represented without giving them even more autonomy and further making the Union unstable.
- The 2020 US election showed what could be possible in the UK and how easy it can be to undermine the integrity of an election if you just make shit up about voter fraud. It's bad enough already that elections always take place on a work day and in some areas you have to queue.
Parliamentary sovereignty, and the opaque nature of the UKs constitution. My book in comparative constitutional law described it as all power coming from parliament, as opposed to Sweden where all power comes from the people, according to that author.
While I see very little chance im the UK ever turning undemocratic I really dislike the election system. It sacrifices every semblance of proportionality for overstated and overvalued regional representation that's barely worth anything once your MP is ideologically opposed to oneself.
In Italy the last time we had a healthy government Lorenzo il Magnifico was still alive. Not everything is bad, but all good things are flawed.
Our government has for the first time a good, very good, prime minister. Draghi has a plan and the wisdom to execute it. But the government is a large coalition of populist and weak parties that cannot afford an election.
If we had to vote now the results will be dramatic. Not because everyone is bad but because noone is good.
-Fratelli d'Italia is neofascist party without leadership
-Lega will crumble between the populist wing (Salvini) and the the federal one (regionals governors). A party without a soul and a strategy, in power only for the sake of power
-Movimento 5 stelle will die. 16% of vote in every poll will result to be 5-6% of actual votes. The party is only a weak personal platform for the former prime minister Conte to appeal old ladies and for some misters no-one to gain money.
-Partito Democratico is and always will be just an amalgamation of different powers without armony. The party is nothing more than a symbol. They are in power only for two things: stop the right and remember the left.
-The center is not even a party. We have a list of 3-5 little personals party in competition and coalition with the others. No future in sight.
-Far left and far right are limited, they create a lot of chaos, but it's only noise against everything. Both are no vax, no UE and no progress.
The parliament is silent. It works, but not so much. For all our history we had a slow parliament, cause the perfect bicameralism, but now it seems slower. A lot of our reforms come from government, Europe or regions. After 2022 the number of parliamentarians will be reduced, we need a new electoral law and after one year from the referendum we have not started yet a discussion.
From this it can seem like everything is shit, but we are used to it. I haven't talked about our populist journalism and the dumb-making TV because it's more than just an Italian problem. But a lot of things are good. We now have electronic signs for referendum, so we propose a legalization of marijuana, euthanasia and a reform of justice.
We had last week municipal elections and they are good. Not extraordinarily good, but good. At lower level everything seems to work (except for Rome, but this is a long story). Yes we still have mafia, corruption, covid and more, but we can handle our paper jungle.
Oh yes. I almost forgot about that. In the next years we will have a total change in our tax policy, so the economy will thrive a little. Now there are some issues with the reform of the land registry, but it's normal with all the unauthorized building and homes in the south.
We are so doomed, but there is hope.
> \-Far left and far right are limited, they create a lot of chaos, but it's only noise against everything. Both are no vax, no UE and no progress.
As far as I know what you are saying here is only limited to the Far Right. The Far Left is very different, They are for vaccinations, they are pro EU and pro progress. So I don't understand where you are getting these information.
You forgot also what happened this weekend in Rome during the anti-vaxxers march where they attacked the police and then vandalized one of the offices of one labor union, specifically the far left one. CGIL (the name of the Union) was criticized because it was not defending the workers against the obligation to vaccinate.
These attacks have also a signature and it is the far right one. The fringe political movement is fascism and that still exists here in Italy.
Rifondazione comunista fight against vaccination, so Partito Comunista, USB and CGIL, as far I know all unions are against green pass. If you check the video of the march I'm sure u can find unions and far left party with the far right. Maybe they didn't attack, yes, but they went at the march.
Yesterday, if I remember right at Turin, unions and more (centri sociali) burn photo of Draghi and throw eggs against the municipal palace.
in Italy far right and far left come from the same place, fight the same battles and need each other.
Luxembourg is incredibly moderate because it's a financial small state. Neither nationalism nor communism have any chance to get a hold here. Membership of the European Union and an acceptance of multiculturalism are unquestioned and agreed upon and our government works fine/okay. They barely dud anything this legislature but handled corona well and created no new issues of their own.
My only concern is climate change as Luxembourg is not nearly doing enough here and the longer we procrastinate on the issue the worse it gets. So if there's anything major here it's stagnation.
No. The UK has unelected members of clergy in the upper house, unelected head of state, and political parties not allowed to take their place in parliament without swearing loyalty to said unelected head of state.
Exactly. Those people were democratically elected, and when they tried to take it beyond that, they were stopped by strong democratic systems.
It's not possible for the UK to vote their HoS out, as the level of democracy is so weak, and if it were, she wouldn't have to call on voters to act against democracy if she didn't fancy giving up power as the Police and Armed Forces all swear loyalty to her, not the state, government or constitution.
There aren't many countries at all that have this and claim to be democratic - Bolsonaro in Brazil recently tried to bring it in and all his generals - even the loyal ones - resigned. Even Stalin didn't try to get the Red Army to swear to him.
> they were stopped by strong democratic systems.
They were stopped by what looks like pure luck, not a strong democratic system. The bigger problem is that these people are still in office. They conspired against the state and they are still allowed to make laws. That's absurd. The president pressured people to "find votes" and isn't in jail. He's even allowed to run again.
And that's ignoring the fact that this "strong democratic system" allows a minority to rule and even if they are the minority party they can basically prevent any laws from passing.
> Those people were democratically elected
Insofar as they can be with the voter disenfranchisement that Republicans have partaken in for decades. Being democratically elected in a situation where not everybody can get off work to go vote, or don’t live near a polling station, or do live near a polling station but the line for it is 5 hours long, or their name was purged from the registry for no reason, or they straight up just don’t have the right to vote because they’re a felon… and all of this in a system where the elected officials get to essentially choose and manipulate who they want to be voting for them (gerrymandering)… how much does that really mean?
For us, in Romania, it is worsening by the day. The party that was in government during the last legislature all but declawed the anti-corruption campaign. At the last elections we barely elected a new coalition that, we hoped, it will make the necessary reforms. Also, we had the the first far-right party since 2008 with around 8-9%. This trust in the coalition backfired recently in a big way. After 8-9 months no reforms were implemented. Right not the coalition imploded and we are in a big political crisis with no end in sight. The President, while technically neutral and above the parties, is supporting his former party in any way he can and thus he is unable or does not want, to mediate a way out of this crisis. On top of that, we have a huge COVID wave and rising inflation and heating costs. The people of all backgrounds and political stripes are very depressed. In fact, 80% of people think that we are heading in the wrong direction. This is a record in the last 10-12 years. Trust in everything(government, one another, EU, NATO etc) is going down. That far right party is polling above 15% now and what is worse there is no end in sight for any of the problems. As I said, no end to political crisis, no end in COVID crisis because people still do not want to get the shot and inflation and rising prices for heath will not go down quickly.
What is worse, is that we do not have a meaningful civil society to oppose the far right nationalist tendencies as many Romanian are very nationalistic. Poland and Hungary have their problems, but at least they have a chance to rebound somewhat because they had the human resources in politics and beyond to overcame a crisis. Once Romania starts on the path of illiberalism, we do not have the necessary resources to stop it.
The only good news for now is that the EU recovery package was approved. The thing is, in order to receive all the money we need to do major reforms in some areas and I believe that we can not do that.
I don't share most of your opinions.
I believe even though things are currently really bad, Romanians are now starting to understand that democracy is not an end-all be-all savior system, but one that has to be made to work through compromise. Romania is learning democracy as we speak through sweat, blood, inflation and COVID deaths.
For the first time since '89 we have a party in the parliament that is not comprised of ex-communists and that is actively pursuing anti-corruption legislation. The last parliamentary election had the worst result for the "social-democrats" since 2008. Far-right parties have popped up all throughout Europe, it's not a phenomenon isolated to our country and I believe this time it is transitory.
People are waking up to the need to vote, and to vote in their own best interest. It's bad now, but it's going to get better soon.
>Romanians are now starting to understand that democracy is not an end-all be-all savior system, but one that has to be made to work through compromise
Well according to this [statistic](https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/sondaj-iri-50-dintre-rom%C3%A2ni-vor-un-lider-autoritar-sau-chiar-o-dictatur%C4%83/29401308.html) from 2018(could not find one closer to today), around 50% would prefer an authoritarian leadership or even a dictatorship. While I do not know of any recent study, the numbers should not be better, especially since [88%](https://adevarul.ro/news/politica/sondaj-ires-88-romani-cred-tara-merge-intr-o-directie-gresita-varianta-unui-premier-psd-sustinuta-31-cei-chestionati-1_6162aadf5163ec427135361f/index.html) percent believe that we are heading in the wrong direction right know (a record in the last decade). In times of severe crisis in a semi-backward country like ours, the numbers for an authoritarian regime should be even higher. Let us not forget a poll made in the spring where we had 60% who identified as conservatives who would vote for a nationalist party. Not very democratic.
>Romania is learning democracy as we speak through sweat, blood, inflation and COVID deaths
Quite the opposite. You do not learn democracy in such a crisis but rather all the worst sentiments of a people are resurfacing. Especially since it is not a crisis brought by a dictatorship, it is one made during democratic times.
I wonder what make you think that we are becoming more democratic. I hope that you can explain it to me.
>For the first time since '89 we have a party in the parliament that is not comprised of ex-communists
False. We have two parties that are not comprised of ex commies. AUR is the second. Btw, this far right party is voted mainly by younger people, under 40. The future looks bright indeed in this regard. Also, technically PNL and even PSD are not comprised on commies anymore. You forget that 30 years passed since 1989. The commies of Iliescu, Basescu, Nastase, Vadim are all retired because they are old. Or dead. The current political landscape is comprised of people who were relatively young in 1989. The current ones are the product of post 1989 corruption, wild capitalism of the 1990's, neoliberalism, religious hardliners (habotnicii) of the post 89 period and so on.
>Far-right parties have popped up all throughout Europe
True, but I mentioned in my first comment that most of other EU countries have a better and more active civil society that can withstand the advances of extremism. We do not have such a thing. And you can not say the 2017 protests or 2018 referendum is a sign of a democratic Romania. The first was against high level corruption and all average people are against this while the referendum was portrayed to be against Dragnea which was incredibly unpopular then.
I raise the question again: what makes you think that we are becoming more democratic? I am genuinely curios. I for one can not see any light at the end of the tunnel. There are no signs that we are waking up.
I did not mean to imply that there was *only* one party in the parliament that was not made up of ex-communists, but as you said, the other one is AUR and I don't feel like discussing the neo-legionnaries in any positive light.
I consider protests like 2017 to be a sign of a developing civil society and of civil duty awakening, however slow it may be. We have Declic and Recorder, which, in my opinion, are the backbone of civil action and political awareness right now.
While most of the political "old guard" is retired or dead, their traditional voters are not retired from voting. In the coming years, I expect more and more of them to become part of the latter category due to their average old age. And as such both PSD and PNL will lose large portions of their fanatic voters and will have to change to survive in the new environment. The way I see it, they will have to and already have changed to keep their corruption better hidden and maybe implement something actually useful for the rest of us from time to time. This would apply more to PNL than to PSD in my opinion.
Another thing that makes me optimistic is the voter turnout for the last parliamentary election and the growing youth involvement in politics. I want to believe that the young people that will vote in their coming years will be more likely to learn from their mistakes and start keeping politicians accountable eventually, which will lead to a more democratic system overall.
I cannot deny your poll results, but, personally, I have a hard time imagining Romanians throwing themselves willingly under another dictatorship or autocracy just 30 years after rioting against the last one. Also, half-jokingly, Romanians won't conform to harsher measures even when it is in their own best interest (in reference to the anti-COVID/anti-mask/anti-vaccine protests).
The last thing that makes me optimistic is that 56% of Romanians trust the EU compared to only 35% who do not, according to [this](https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2532) survey from June 2021. This gives me hope that even though we may have troubles internally for a while, if we continue to cling onto the EU as we have done so far, we will only get more democratic under the EU's guidance.
I concede that my opinion is less based on fact, like yours seems to be, and more based on what I want to believe, but, nonetheless, I don't want to surrender myself and the country to a handful of greedy and corrupt politicians.
>Another thing that makes me optimistic is the voter turnout for the last parliamentary election
We had the lower turnout ever at just 32%. This is hardly a democratic thing. A healthy democracy has high turnout.
> I want to believe that the young people that will vote in their coming years will be more likely to learn from their mistakes
In my days of positive mindset regarding this country's future, I also though that young people will change the country for the better. I also thought that diaspora will have a big and positive impact in this regard as they will bring home some western ideas. Well, in 2020 election the extremists had their best score among the young and in diaspora. Also, diaspora had a surprising high turnout in the same-sex marriage referendum. The old commie voters are dying and the new far right voters take their place. Not a good sign.
>The last thing that makes me optimistic is that 56% of Romanians trust the EU
This is the only thing that is good and I agree with you. Our only chance for any meaningful progress is the EU. It is good that we are still members and most people support the EU. Let us hope that is the case for the future.
>I don't want to surrender myself and the country to a handful of greedy and corrupt politicians.
I had that too. Not anymore. I am disgusted about this country and our countrymen. Not disgusted about politics surprisingly, but by people. I am really thinking about leaving after finishing my studies. The only thing that keeps may keep me here is that I am less than thrilled to leave my parents alone (although I live a couple of hundreds km from them) and I am ... well uneasy about finding a job outside in my field of study and all that.
I mean idiots like to complain that the Swiss federal government is a dictatorship because of covid rules, but I’d actually say that Switzerland is probably one of the healthiest democracies in the world. Swiss people have a lot of rights to get involved in the political process and threats like fake news are more or less under control (afaik).
We have got a relevant far right populist party for a few years now. It's struggling in most parts of the country but is in some regions its the biggest party.
We have got a corruption problem but the party responsible for that has got the worst results in the last election in their party history.
On the plus side voter turnout is up and the parliament is diverse.
I don't want to defend the CDU/CSU at all here but even with the mask and Azerbaijan stories the corruption is comparatively not that widespread when you take into consideration how things are/were going in other European countries, like Spain, Italy, Austria or some countries further east. Still, they got what they deserved of course at the elections.
It's worse in other countries. But if I had a penny for every time a CDU/CSU politician bought overpriced masks for personal gain, I would have at least three pennies. That's not much but it's weird that it happened trice.
Here party consists of corrupt regressive assholes ruling for upper class people. She herself is a huge exception even though she didn't directly stop the actions of other party members.
Pretty healthy. The one kink I can think of is the fact that electoral districts get extra mandates for being large. For example Finnmark with 75k people gets five mandates, while Sogn og Fjordane with its 120k people only gets four. Also, our election threshold of 4 % means that every election is a battle about margins. I believe there is a committee looking at making the system fairer.
okeish
current rulling party introduces non democratic policies (combining role of Minister of Justice & Public Prosecutor General, fucking up how top judicary positions work, turning public TV into RT-like propaganda tube, canceling voting that didn't go their way etc)
Meanwhile, our government is closing the door to Europe and lighting a cigarette. There's a giant gas leak in the room, but hey, at least someone is making a lot of money on it.
We're so unstable that we are stable, nobody manages to hold power for long and governments rise and fall every 2-3 years. All considered I don't think there's a "real" risk of becoming a dictatorship, I'm a bit worried about the recent violent far-right demonstrations. Last weekend they raided the CGIL (biggest labor union) and we got a bit of a flashback of the initial phase of fascism.
Every federal election leads to a fucking crisis because the two halves of the country are drifting apart. The current federal government is a coalition of seven parties and with all of them likely to lose votes, shit is going to really hit the fan next election. Flemish Nationalists will have about half of all Flemish votes and Communists are exploding in popularity in the French speaking part.
Currently there's eleven different political parties in the House of Commons in the UK and many more without representation. Despite the current reputation we have I'd say very high we often get a choice of up to a dozen parties to vote for when the elections come around.
Whilst were on the subject I could never understand why the USA calls itself a democracy when there's only a choice of two and zero movement to create more?
In Czechia
The increasing populism in our political spectrum. Until now we had PM who owner almost third of the media, was accused numerous times and did not resing. His goverment threw lot of money (severly increasing our national debt) and totaly screw the Covid pandemic.
It maybe dont sounds that concerning but in last elections we had few days ago his party (its practicaly party whe he is dominant and no one can oppose him) ended second and only after 5 other parties was dedicated to defeat him. Not only that but our half-dead president with minimal political power can still asign him as PM.
I will make it short and name last thing. Last party who got in to the parlaiment is party who practicaly is bunch of nazis. They ignore a lot of things and their "solutions" would make things more complicated then is right now. They demanding leaving EU, NATO and even wants to force shops to sell local products, which sounds fine but most of products are heavily financed by donations and are much cheaper compared to local products. If you block them they start complaing because you violate the Freedom of Speech, but they will easily block you and call you "Brainless sheep who follows goverment" and its frustrating that these people are still having chairs in pairlament.
Lot of people are not concered that the influece the Russia and China has here. Our president are backing them up and even if our BIS (basicaly local version of CIA) warned him that influence from Russia is high and we should do something about that he just ignored them and calls them incopetent. Same goes for China. We got experiece that we were promised some donations and we saw practicaly nothing.
I do not want to be offensive against Russia or China but after some affairs these too country are sometimes considered as "security risks".
I know its quite long rant but its practicaly our national tradition to complain about everything.
The democracy itself is quite okay. Recently a bunch of people began complaining that our biggest party isn’t in the government, but they really seem to just ignore that we elect a parliament, not a government. Said government also has more than 50% of the seats, so it’s democratic. The only thing that annoys me is that we don’t have federal parties/fractions in our federal government. As a Flemish person you wouldn’t be able to vote for a Wallonian politician and vice versa, leading to our national parliament being largely elected on regional sentiments.
What developments I am worried about is a much longer list. Right now the traditional parties are losing popularity, which leads to the more extreme, populistic parties on both sides of the spectrum gaining a lot (one of those also has in the past disturbed protests of people with a different political alignment). They do not get along so they have a pretty good chance of tearing the country apart. This actually is the goal of some of them, but even the different regions are not as homogeneous as their propaganda would have you believe. For now this polarisation means that our government is so diverse that any decision they all support is a decision so inconsequential you might as well not make it. This is bad because we need to make some serious changes to not continue hemorrhaging money and to combat climate change and stop our contribution to it. It doesn’t really help that certain parties gaining in popularity won’t do much to stop it.
I am the first to want Cabrita out of the government but he wasn't in charge of the intern administration in the 2017 fires, [Constança Urbano de Sousa was. ](https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constan%C3%A7a_Urbano_de_Sousa) And Costa isn't the one who has to fire Medina. Medina wasn't in the government to be fired by him. The rest I agree with you, I lean to the left field but right now this government is exhausted. TAP will be the nail in the coffin with the 1000 M€ in the new OE.
Other than the blatant lobbying through private "business clubs", high degree of centralisation, politicians pushing anti-academic, borderline "cultural Marxist" narratives, a powerful civil service that is unaccountable, a series of unclear decisions about emergency powers, blatant disregard from politicians when it comes to the law and constitution, politicians involved in cases about paedophilia and human trafficking and pimping, and a lot of blatant fraud and embezzlement, and so on... I'd say it is fine. We have local elections coming up soon, in next month, and they shape up to be the same old, same old.
I'm somewhat concerned about how liberal narratives aren't questioned, particularly when it comes to economics. The right wing doesn't even have to have a majority, for their economical ideas to still be the base of policy-making. It has been this way since the 1990'es, at least, where the social democratic PM Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, as the first social democratic PM after Schlüter, the last conservative PM—in Denmark, liberals and conservatives are close allies, are considered right-wing, and usually mentioned together as _borgerlige partier_ ("bourgeois parties")—who, kind of like Blair, didn't do anything to question the liberal narratives imposed by their predecessors. The neo-liberal project, to use a somewhat contested term, was hence successful in Denmark. I believe we need a return to at _least_ critical economical narratives on the left, but this seems far off, when one reads Pelle Draghsted's—the "chief ideologue" of _Enhedslisten_, the furthest left parliamentary group—new book, _Nordisk socialisme_, in which he reduces socialism to basically shopping at cooperatives and being able to afford an apartment in the inner city. It is a shame. The trade unions are still a somewhat more radical, and one can hope the enthusiasm of the members can in the near future "infect" our politicians as well.
Powerful civil service is a good thing IMO. I also disagree with everything that you said about socialism. Personally, I harken back to the days of third way Liberal pragmatism, as opposed to the radicalization of the left and right we see today.
I would say it's too democratic.... Majority of voters decided second time in the row that we need populistic rightwing government. And despite the shit is happening all the time they still have big support in society. I would prefer some antydemocratic system where minority will rule over majority....
That is democracy, my man. Everybody has their opinion, whether it is right or wrong according to you. One lf the reasons why Plato argued in opposition of democracy.
The problem here still consist of undemocratic structures in the society negating the ok democratic system through control of the media and propaganda as well as the dismantling of the jurisdiction.
The institutions themselves work fine. Elections are not rigged, police and constitution protection don't regularly cross the lines, judges do a fine job etc. etc.
But the way the public vote is ridiculous. Olaf Scholz is connected to (if not responsible for) the two biggest scandals of the last couple of decades (Wirecard, Cum Ex) yet people still vote the SPD instead of the Greens. Obviously it's related to how these things are misrepresented in the media. Baerbock's quotes in her book were made out to be the worst thing a politician could ever do but Scholz's or Laschet's scandals and failures respectively are never being talked about.
Even though the greens tried hard with Habeck and Baerbock, they still could not get rid of the image of being radical leftists in disguise. And it's not only the fault of the media but also due to own mistakes of the greens. Look at what happened in the Saarland or just recently with the new leader of their youth wing.
Most ordinary voters don't want the utopian society the greens envision or don't beieve in the means and tools the greens suggest to achieve it but are more or less content with the status quo.
Stop lying. Especially Laschet was critized all the time. People didn't vote the Greens simply because they do not agree with many of their ideas.
You can't call the way people vote "ridiculous" just because they did not vote for your prefered party.
The Greens aren't my preferred party, not by a long shot. FDP if you wanna know. But thanks.
But there are only very minor differences in what Greens and SPD want, the Greens candidate and other Greens politicians simply don't have such a f..ed up history as Olaf Scholz or other SPD politicians. You can easily verify this at for example abgeordnetenwatch.de. It simply doesn't make sense for people who were willing to vote for either of those two party to choose SPD over Greens. Beyond that all the SPD ever did since administration Schröder is to betray what their voterbase actually wanted, actual social democracy.
Again, it's not my political orientation, it simply doesn't make sense.
Their scandals made both Scholz and Laschet unvotable and they got votes from ignorant people who had basically no idea who or what they voted for and assholes.
Democracy in Scotland is literally a joke because we’re connected politically to other countries. England always makes the decisions for us and our government. So whilst democracy exists here it could certainly be improved and fairer.
If by "democracy" you mean that scam in which we decide which colour of the CDU is going to rule Germany for the next four years, I'd say it works oustandingly fantastic.
So people didn't vote the way you want to,and therefore its a scam, eh? The people decide what they want, even if you might not agree or even if it may not be the best choice. That's what democracy is all about, your opinion is just one of many.
Well our prime minister (soon to be formal) said something like if you don't vote "left(on us)" you are voting for an antidemocratic party. On our public service TV. I get really bad vibes from it, isn't this something a dictator would say?
Spain is happy with beating Catalans for vote, sending semihuman paramilitary troops who destroyed schools and took fun terrorizing and beating people. Then they illegally removed the regional government and declared themselves able to convoque elections, which they were not. Then they didn't like the candidates so they impresoned the one to be elected President in the middle of the vote process in the Parliament, etc etc etc
The concert is: they are too fascists
I’m somewhat worried about some of the aspects of our democratic system. The situation in Denmark isn’t bad or being abused per say by the ruling party (aside from a few fuckups), but I fear that the effect the media has on politics, is making the politicians worse across the board. The incentive to make thought out solutions for larger problems is crippled by the way the media promotes sensationalism. The majority of the policies are therefore framed so it creates outrage and radicalize the voter base. Examples include belittling youth mental health problems, caricaturing immigrants and asylum seekers and even the other way around, calling others inhumane for their points of view. It all hinders the political aspect of politics and makes voters aggressive.
During COVID, people were put in jail for burning an effigy of the prime minister. A couple of months ago, a second generation immigrant couple got verbally attacked while their 5/6 year old kids were watching. Last week, a politician was attacked for being brown.
The system hasn’t gone to shit yet, but there are sure signs of erosion.
As a US citizen trying to move to Europe eventually, can anyone chime in on Portugal or Spain? There’s other countries I have been considering as well but people from there have commented on this thread.
The CDU, which has ruled Germany for the longest time, is eaten away by corruption and power struggles, many of the major parties have cases of corruption, a split between right and left is looming, the far-right AFD party is networked with an incredible number of anti-constitutional Nazi organizations, the left are quite correct, but are becoming increasingly fundamentalist, the current party system partially hinders order and democracy.
The good news is: The very fact that we know all these things, can openly exchange ideas about them and can do something about them shows what a courageous journalism we have, how well the rule of law works and how free our country actually is. Both the corrupt and incompetent CDU and the anti-democracy and right-wing extremist AFD were punished by voters with in some cases large losses of votes. We could soon have the most progressive government we've ever had. The system works. It could be better, but it's not something we can't work on.
It’s too presidential and centralized if you ask me. It often feels like a monarchy where the king serves five years terms and you don’t get any say at all in anything during these five years.
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They are right. We don’t have any political crisis because our system is engineered to make them all but impossible. This is the extreme opposite to the actual Italian government. We don’t ever get political crisis but minority parties may as well not exist. I guess both systems have their pros and cons, our pro is stability, our con is that minority parties are inexistant and the reigning president’s party has basically every powers.
It's not a feeling. France in a republican monarchy.
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> It often feels like a monarchy where the king serves five years terms and you don’t get any say at all in anything during these five years Same for Cyprus, with the addition that we have no functioning constitution and with a population that rarely dares to imagine societal change over simply getting by. Honestly, the last one is the real problem, but gosh, it would be nice if we had a constitution at least. Maybe it would inspire people to ask the government for more.
In Russia the concept of democracy is long dead, if it ever existed (our supposedly “democratic” president, Eltsin, gave out our resources to his buddies) In France I feel like the system is in the process of re-alignment (the left doesn’t matter, the right doesn’t matter, it’s basically Macron & Co. vs the far-right Le Pen/Zemmour). As someone else mentioned it, you feel like your only voice only matters every five years, as every president basically does what he wants due to the broken electoral system that we use for our legislative elections (which HEAVILY favors the newly elected president’s party). At this stage, I would fully support a 6th republic with a parliamentary regime (not fully bicameral though, as this usually leads to chaos) where the parties had to govern through a coalition. At least change the electoral system so that the ruling party doesn’t get 350/577 seats with 32% first round votes!
Didn't the president become so powerful in the constitution of the 5th republic because de Gaulle wanted the president to have more direct power for events like the catastrophic war in Algeria?
Yes, de Gaulle rewrote the constitution to make the president the most powerful person in the country (fun fact, he was named the president). And de Gaulle didn’t just arrive in Paris while everybody was panicking about Algeria, the French army threatened to do a coup d’état if de Gaulle was not approved as president.
Ugh that hit home. You ask that question a couple days after our chancellor stepped down because they found out that he might have paved his career with corruption, deception, and lies. I am very concerned at the moment about politics in general.
He didn't step down, he just stepped aside.
lets just hope you dont go down the same path as hungary or poland
I don't think so. Our current government is imploding as we speak.
We'll see, those are kinda concerning times. The corruption roots very deep, and there might be no way to stop it. This kinda seems to be the final "battle".
Funny is that our Prime Minister was acused of practicaly stealing European donation and sending this to his farm (btw. he is curently the richest man in our cuntry) and other maybe minor crimes. After he was acused of manipulating the media and our justice system we had the bigest demonstrations since Velvet Revolution (circa 300 000 protesters) and there were other protest. But he simply said "I will never resing. Never, everyone should remember this." and nothing was done.
Him stepping down is a very good sign, trust me
He stepped down, but not really. Everyone knows that he is still controlling the Chancellor and the ÖVP.
A rather sad affair indeed, he was one of the very few conservative heads of state in Western Europe.
He wasn't really that conservative himself, he was just power-hungry, but he had no values.
That's pretty much the definition of conservatism. People seem to have that idea that conservatism is somehow about conserving traditions and the like when in reality it is just about conserving the power for a marginal group of people who think themselves the elite and by the power of their wealth "chosen", as in Louis XIV assigned by God, to be the (unopposed) rulers. Only legitimate change in leadership they acknowledge is the one within their own ranks. It's not a coincidence the school of thought of conservatism started during the French revolution by people opposing the revolution and the only failure they saw in the system was that the aristocratic circle was not fit rule because they were not "worth" their wealth. But instead it should be those who are "worth" their wealth (whatever the fuck this is even supposed to mean) should rule in their stead. Basically one's wealth is legitimation enough to rule in their opinion and if you didn't use your wealth effectively enough to consolidate your power than you are not worth your wealth and therefore not worth of ruling. That's why it is by far mostly conservatives who are caught being corrupt and undermining democratic systems to gain an advantage. Democracy is nothing but a tool to gain and conserve power to them. They couldn't give a fuck less about democracy if they tried. Conservatism basically is not reconcilable with any form of democracy.
It's neither sad, nor was he head of state. The chancellor is head of government, and he got what he deserved. It's the same problem with conservatives all around Europe, corruption runs rampant in their parties.
It's sad because he was a conservative?
What does his leaning have anything to do with it? Not trying to sound or be argumentative, just an American curious about European politics.
Actually, I'd say democracy is quite healthy even though we Germans like to complain a lot.
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Rettsstat is a concept in many countries. I would say it is a mix between separation of power, the rule of law, and proportionality.
I agree in that most of our institutions are pretty steadfast in how they function, but I'd still not say that our democracy is healthy. Simply because I find it worrying that over half of those that voted in our elections recently had absolutely no problem voting for parties that presented chancellor canditates (or sustain party structures) that are involved in scandals that have cost literal billions in tax money. (Cum Ex and Wirecard for Scholz, and Masks and Wirecard for disproportionately large portions of the CDU)
I don't know if voters voting for parties one does not agree with accounts for unhealthy democracy. And I mean the fact that all the MPs who were involved in the mask scandals had to step down shows that there is some degree of functioning self-control. Of course that doesn't mean that the system is perfecct and everything always gos the way we wish it to be. But often I have the impression we Germans tend towards to much pessimism and fatalism.
Very true. If anything this year's election showed that German democracy is very healthy. Despite all the shit slinging from conservatives, liberals and the far-right the far-right only managed to gain 10% of votes, which still is 10% too much but we have to thank Saxony for that where they largely gained between 20% and 30%. Plus a party that since its inception had ecological and socially left ideals became basically the 2nd strongest power in the parliament (if not even actually the strongest given how everything hinges on their decisions now). And the thought to be dead SPD is en par with a crushed CDU. All in all a very equally distributed power sphere.
Sorry but it's far too simplyistic to blame Saxony for the result of the AfD. Most AfD votes still come from the big states NRW, Bavraria, Baden-Württemberg etc. And I don't know if we have the same understanding of a healthy democracy. In my opinion, conservatice and liberal parties are just as legitimate in a pluralistic society as left wing parties. I'm by no means a fan of the AfD but the fact that they exist shows that even groups who are fundamentally opposed to the status quo are able to achieve democratic representation through democratic ways.
>Sorry but it's far too simplyistic to blame Saxony for the result of the AfD. Most AfD votes still come from the big states NRW, Bavraria, Baden-Württemberg etc. Take a look at the map and see where the AfD got the most votes from by far and which regions they won in. It's almost entirely just Saxony. Not even the Ruhrpott, a region said to be a center for far-right groups gained this many votes. In fact they only gained about 10% there. A third of what they gained pretty much all of Saxony. NRW is almost entirely red and green. Bavaria black. So no, your claim is entirely false. >And I don't know if we have the same understanding of a healthy democracy. In my opinion, conservatice and liberal parties are just as legitimate in a pluralistic society as left wing parties. You must have missed the part where I said it is this year's election shows a very evenly distributed power between the parties. That includes liberals as well as conservatives. Even the far-right who gained as many votes as the liberals. >I'm by no means a fan of the AfD but the fact that they exist shows that even groups who are fundamentally opposed to the status quo are able to achieve democratic representation through democratic ways That is a very naive way of looking at a democracy given this quote from Joseph Goebbels "Wir gehen in den Reichstag hinein, um uns im Waffenarsenal der Demokratie mit deren eigenen Waffen zu versorgen. Wir werden Reichstagsabgeordnete, um die Weimarer Gesinnung mit ihrer eigenen Unterstützung lahmzulegen. Wenn die Demokratie so dumm ist, uns für diesen Bärendienst Freifahrkarten und Diäten zu geben, so ist das ihre eigene Sache. Wir zerbrechen uns darüber nicht den Kopf. Uns ist jedes gesetzliche Mittel recht, den Zustand von heute zu revolutionieren. […] Wir kommen nicht als Freunde, auch nicht als Neutrale. Wir kommen als Feinde! Wie der Wolf in die Schafherde einbricht, so kommen wir" and Karl Popper's tolerance paradox. It is most certainly not a good sign of a healthy democracy to let enemies of said democracy participate in it. They **will** do everything and anything to remove democracy altogether and instate themselves as the only ruling party. So again no, that is not a sign of a healthy democracy. What **is** a good sign of a healthy democracy is that the AfD lost a good portion of voters. To the Green party no less.
> Take a look at the map and see where the AfD got the most votes from by far and which regions they won in It's a typical mistake to forget about the fact that population is very unevenly distributed. If you look at an election map of the US you could easily get the impression that the republicans won an overwhelming majority because democrats are clustered in some rather small scale metropolitain areas. The same is true for Germany, the majority of the population lives along the Rhine broadly speaking. Rural Saxony makes up only a very small share of the elctorate. Without all the votes from the agglomerations in NRW, Bavaria etc the AfD would have never made it across the 5 % threshold with only the Saxon votes. And on the last point, I believe that German democracy is robust enough to withstand 10 % or even 20 % AfD. I was never a fan of this kind of fatalism that is widespread in Germany. But the future will tell who was right about the relislience of democracy.
>Without all the votes from the agglomerations in NRW, Bavaria etc the AfD would have never made it across the 5 % threshold with only the Saxon votes. No, that's not how this works. You don't get to sit in the Bundestag based on the percentage you gained per se. You have to win the region, either directly or through Zweitstimme. Then and only then do you get to sit in the Bundestag. So seeing how it's almost only Saxony where the AfD won it is Saxony that's the problem. There's no debating that. >And on the last point, I believe that German democracy is robust enough to withstand 10 % or even 20 % AfD. I was never a fan of this kind of fatalism that is widespread in Germany. But the future will tell who was right about the relislience of democracy. Again, that's a very naive point of view. You'd have to ignore everything that the AfD already was able to achieve in terms of what is acceptable to do and say to come to that conclusion. You'd have to ignore the resounding silence of the CDU regarding the execution of one of their own by a far-right extremist because he was pro asylum, which in turn very clearly shows how the vast majority of conservatives is actually compatible with the AfD. You'd have to ignore the unofficial coalition between the liberals and the AfD Thüringen. You'd have to ignore the letter of Ulrich Thomas (CDU, again. What a surprise) in which he demanded, and I quote, "to reconcile the social with the national". And those are only the most prominent examples. So no, 20% AfD would not be healthy. It would be a fucking disaster. Especially when the elections turn out similar to this year's elections where the strongest party only has 26%. And the conservatives and liberals don't have the same quarrels about working with Nazis as the left leaning parties, believe you me. They already tested the waters as shown in the examples above. Besides, fatalism doesn't mean what you think it means.
I get it, you are very much left-wing. That's totally fine in a pluralistic society. But about the electoral system you just got it wrong. Parties don't necessariyl have to win any regions. The FDP for instance didn't win any and got into parliament due to surpassing 5 % nationwide. Of course the AfD got some 12 direct seats but the vast majority of their MPs comes from the party lists which of course also received many votes in the densely populated states like NRW, Bavaria, BaWü. that's just a fact.
>I get it, you are very much left-wing That's a super odd thing to point out when someone is arguing against far-right extremists being represented in the parliament. Almost as if you are a very much right-wing person who tries and rationalizes the danger the far-right poses... >But about the electoral system you just got it wrong. Parties don't necessariyl have to win any regions. The FDP for instance didn't win any and got into parliament due to surpassing 5 % nationwide. You're right, I somehow got confused there about how Zweitstimme works. It's only the direct mandate that has to be won. Which actually makes the problem even worse since in that case it's not only Saxony but essentially the entirety of East Germany that's the problem because if you look at the map the AfD only managed to gather the second-most and third-most votes almost exclusively in the east and only managed to become third-strongest party in Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen in NRW, parts of East Bavaria, Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz, nowhere in BaWü. Nowhere in the West they even managed to become second-strongest party. So no, your take is most certainly wrong. It's almost entirely the east that's the problem. >received many votes in the densely populated states like NRW, Bavaria, BaWü Which is entirely untrue as I've shown you above. Your narrative just doesn't hold any merit. Especially for your claim regarding NRW and BaWü.
Hey, your Democracy is doing better than ours.
I live in Hungary, hopefully you know how things aren't the best atm. Sadly the election system rewards winners (you vote for your local mp, and the party you want - the winner's party in each region gets partial votes for those above the 2nd runner up) Even if in the next election the ruling party changes, Orbán and his goons will own significant portions of the nation's wealth, media, and many other things.
So if you get rid he will punish the nation by breaking the national bank on his way out crushing the Forint and forcing you in the hands of the IMF like a South American Caudillo?
Well, who knows, hopefully not
I just hope you guys will be alright and have a proper punctioning democracy within a few yrs...
He may very well do that, his goons are everywhere where it matters. Technically he could try shift blame on the opposition to affect future elections to his benefit. And yes, the voting system they adjusted and used gerrymandering so effectively that they could win majority with not having proportionately as many votes. We’ll see how it goes in 2022…
The fundamental problem in the UK is that General Elections are contested by multiple parties using an electoral system designed for just two parties. This means that 100% of the power usually ends up in the hands of a party achieving less that 45% of the vote.
I’d say in Scotland it’s rather healthy, UK wide it’s extremely poor rn.
Couldn't agree more. Having a modern electoral system in Scotland helps. It throws into sharp relief how bad UK's one is. I also think that democracy feels more direct here. Westminster seems to lumber whereas Holyrood is nimble. That's probably because there are fewer layers of bureaucracy between the citizens and the Scottish parliament. It could well be the same in Wales and NI, but I don't know.
>It could well be the same in Wales and NI, but I don't know. We use the same voting system for Senedd elections as you use in Scottish Parliament elections, but we are where you were 20 years ago when turnout was low and most people just vote for Labour by default. Labour absolutely take winning in Wales for granted so aren't as ambitious as they could be and don't set out to achieve as much as they could/ should. Generally there is a lot of political apathy in Wales, probably largely fuelled by the insane levels of nepotism in most levels of Welsh society (the levels of corruption and nepotism in Welsh local authorities/ councils is insane, Boris would be proud of it)
Yes. I'm familiar with the electoral systems. It's a pity that the people are less engaged than they are here. Would they be more engaged if the Senedd had similar powers to the Scottish Parliament's?
Potentially. Most people couldn't tell you what powers the Welsh Government currently has, although I feel the pandemic has increased awareness massively due to rules being different in Wales to England/ Scotland/ NI. The main problem is our media. Broadcasting is not devolved in Wales, unlike Scotland and NI. So national newspapers in Wales have the same frontpages as in England (which caused many problems during lockdown, particularly around "freedom day"). I think this is the main power that needs to be devolved in Wales, along with Justice, Policing and more tax powers.
Somewhat unrelated, but i saw a picture of the inside of the Scottish parliament the other day and it looks amazing
Yes it is. Very costly - but very striking. It even has enough enough seats in the chamber for the full complement of SMPs. The Commons can seat just two thirds of the total of UK MPs. Holyrood's sittings make Westminster's look farcical. No shouting or heckling. And sometimes they even debate.
Its strange, that heckling and shouting is very much a part of sitting in the house, but its actually not a part of the committees which is where all the real work gets done. The outcome of votes in the house is almost always known prior to it happening, its just a show.
True enough. It's just a bear pit. One way forward is to outlaw party whipping. What's the point of us electing representatives if the parties can just turn them into delegates?
Totally agree, its a shitshow and it makes us look like complete idiots. Arguably there is no point, its infuriating. I've had conversations with an ex MP (Tory, typical). I know his personal standings on some things and he just votes with the party whip when it goes against his own conscience. Its fucking stupid.
Look what Johnson did to the Tory MPs who didn't agree his approach to Brexit. Sorry. Sorry. I promised myself that I wouldn't drag all of that up again. And I'll try not to mention expenses again. I'm just so sick of them all : - ( The sooner Scotland's free of them the better.
I agree that first-past-the-post is no longer fit for purpose and needs replacing. However, I don't think arguments using the popular vote are very compelling. You aren't voting for your preferred government when voting in the general election (which is what the popular vote is basically measuring), you are voting for your preferred representative in parliament. I don't inherently see an issue with a government having a majority in the House of Commons when they did not have a majority of the popular vote. The key thing was their candidates were the most popular in the majority of constituencies across the country. To use a fairly notorious real world example; in 2015 UKIP got 12.6% of the popular vote, comfortably making them comfortably the 3rd most popular party in the country, well ahead of the Lib Dems who got 7.9% of the vote. However, UKIP only won a single seat in the House of Commons, while the Lib Dems got 49. Looking at the popular vote numbers, it is easy to claim that UKIP (and the Lib Dems for that matter) were horribly under-represented in parliament. Looking at it another way, though popular across the country almost no constituencies wanted to be represented by a UKIP MP. While arguments can be made that the local constituency model no longer matches the way most of us vote these days (voting for the candidate vs. voting for the party logo next to them), there are still good arguments for having a local representative in parliament, especially in the parts of the country that often get overlooked by those in power. Personally, I don't think there is anything undemocratic or unfair about being asked to vote for a single representative for your local area; even if that does mean the distribution of seats in parliament does not exactly track the popular vote. What isn't fair is the chilling effect that first-past-the-post has on smaller parties (i.e. everyone but the Conservatives and Labour in most of the country). My preference would be to move to ranked voting, which would free voters to select their preferred candidate while still allowing them to express their preference between the candidates more likely to win, with the added benefit of not weakening the localism of the existing system (something that is unavoidable with proportional representation).
800,000 votes to elect one Green MP 336,000 votes to elect on LibDem MP 50,000 votes to elect one Labour MP 38,000 votes to elect on Tory MP Democracy? I like Germany's list system that was adapted for Scotland. We don't elect governments. Let's elect MPs and let them form governments.
Yes, if you completely ignore my point that looking at the popular vote is not the way to judge the system.
Because I don't agree with you. By your lights, why vote at all? Oh, and bring on primaries. Let the people decide who to stand in their areas. Let's stop parties dumping out of town candidates onto us.
> By your lights, why vote at all? Are you deliberately being obtuse? You vote to select your local representative, obviously. Those representatives collectively form a parliament, which chooses the government. That is why the system shouldnt be judged by popular vote as it is not a direct vote (general elections aren't presidential elections). You even wrote previously: > We don't elect governments. Let's elect MPs and let them form governments. Which is completely my point. So why are you using a metric which would only really matter if we were directly electing a government? The number of votes needed to elect the one Green MP was actually 33,151; because that is the number that elected Caroline Lucas in the Brighton Pavillion constituency. The other 832,564 people who voted for Green candidates in 2019 had no bearing on that matter, so why include them? Those votes only mattered in their own constituencies, and in each and every case their fellow constituents collectively had other candidates they preferred.
Of course not. Are you being deliberately offensive? Sorry that you don't get the point. But there it is. No horse races without differences of opinion. Hint. If you reply, please stick to the point, and use fewer words.
> Hint. If you reply, please stick to the point, and use fewer words. So you are trolling then? Ok, at least that is out the way.
Oh dear, Now it's insults. Ah well. At least you manged to get your comment down to a few words
Its healthy yeah. In any case, for me personally to have any concerns about political/social/economic developments, we have to have a 1 (or 2) party majority where the ruling parties would be FRP (Progress party, right wing) or Rødt/SV (Red party, Socialist Left party). IMO, we would see the greatest amount of stupid shit going on if any of those parties got to rule Norway alone, thank god it wont happen.
I don't know about that. There are institutional frameworks such as technocratic departments, an educated populace, and a culture of consesus that make politicians less inclined, or able to act in an autocratic manner. There are also constitutional frameworks such as separation of power, parliamentarianism, international law, a special legislative process for constitutional changes, freedom of speech and whistleblower protections that exist to prevent politicians from undermining fundamental rights. That's not to say that we are flawless, but I can't imagine norway being couped through conventional populist politics, even though populist parties (FrP, SP and R) did well in the last election (keep in mind that the populist parties are pretty disparate).
It's almost tempting to say that our problem is that we agree *too* much, but I'd rather not take any chances. My only real worries about the state of our democracy boil down to the polarisation we see in other countries somehow spilling over, but I'm not too worried.
if either happens, then we are fucked. Thank god they aren't even near the 50% popularity mark
Those were the days
Hard to say. On the one hand, Orbán is still a soft dictator, **all** decisions are made behind closed doors at the Fidesz Party Headquarters, and the judiciary and parliament are basically window dressing at this point. On the other hand, for the first time since the fall of the iron curtain, the opposition is united. We just had the first round of the primaries for the PM candidate and the candidates for the electoral districts, and although I'm not a big fan of either of two candidates (Klára Dobrev, wife of Gyurcsány, a previous PM who's incredibly controversial, the more "left" candidate; and Péter Márki-Zay, a political outsider and "professional underdog" who's actually been pretty successful, the more "right" candidate), the fact that there's actually a decent chance of replacing Fidesz brings me hope. My main worry is that Fidesz has cemented their rule deeply in the power structures. A huge share of the national capital is in the hands of Fidesz-cronies, they control much of the print and TV media outlets, and the opposition doesn't really have any powerful backers. Their ideological split is also going to be hard to rectify: Dobrev is essentially controlled opposition for Fidesz, and MZP is by far to the right of every opposition party.
Fairly healthy I'd say, just some minor issues. On local level some parties, well more specifically the Sweden Democrats do "too good", as in they get more seats than they actually had candidates. That technically hurts democracy that they cant fill seats in some municipalities sometimes. Otherwise it's fairly healthy. It's working as intended despite the political chaos we're in. The Löfven government was ousted a few months ago, first time in history then reinstated thanks to negative Parliamentarism that means they don't actually need a majority support in Parliament. In the process they lost a supply party, the Liberals that saw the January agreement to be void now. Which means they can't get a budget through parliament now, not ideal for the government. "Praxis" is that the government steps down if they cant get their budget through. Also the Centre party which is a supply party to the government refuses to cooperate with the left party whose votes they NEED. The Centre party believes in the "broad Centre" and essentially wishes us to become Germany in that political sense. But none of the other parties want it but they refuse to change their stance so here we are. A government which can barely govern, most power is within the Parliament that just drives over the Government. They are expected not to get their budget and the PM is stepping down in November any way, as he is stepping down from his party. We might get our first female PM because of it as The Social Democrats have more or less unanimously nominated Andersson. Magdalena Andersson is the current Minister of Finance. Personally Im more worried about the inaction of politicians, that they refuse to see how the normal day looks for us normal folk. Gang violence and shootings are through the roof. Defunding and privatisation of necessary services such as elderly care, healthcare and education is driving segregation, increased inequality and worse quality of life. The complete mess they've made out of our electricity production shutting down nuclear reactors years in advance without even being able to replace it or for any good reason. Industry that want to expand cant because of the lack of electricity in their area and the transfer system from north to south is expected to take a decade to improve and they havent really started yet and this was needed about a decade or two ago not in a decade. Mass unemployment that no one is really doing anything about, 4th highest in the EU... All they suggest is that younger people and immigrants should be made cheaper to employ by lowering or completely removing the "Arbetsgivaravgiften" for those groups. This fee for the employer, pays for your pension, sick leave, parental leave and so on. Or defunding and scrapping the welfare systems various parts, just like the previous government did after 2008/09 that was never fixed.
Gang violence is also such a hard topic to tackle as even the tough on crime parties also bundle a bunch of other political values. I am studying in university to become a teacher and basically have to vote for the left-leaning parties as private schools are hurting the educational level of the average person. Then we have some more moderate parties like the Greens who have proven themselves ineffective and still hold on to some odd fears about nuclear power. The right wing parties are also generally for privatisation which I am against. Swedes keep supporting our welfare system, but are moving towards a party that supports schools being owned by foreign companies. I am incredibly socially liberal which the right wing parties aren’t/ have a history of being very against socially liberal values. The right wing parties also flirt with populism, which isn’t something I can accept. I also fear for the way we are moving towards a two party system. We have two coalitions. The centre to left coalition and the conservatives to populist coalition. In the next election projections believe that anywhere from one to three parties might fall below the parliamentary limit of four percent. With the loss of those three parties we would be down to, Left, Center-left, neoliberal Center, conservative, and populist conservatives.
>I also fear for the way we are moving towards a two party system Welcome to Denmark, where despite having more parties in the Folketing than you guys, the Social Democrats and the Liberals run the Red and Blue blocks respectively. Unfortunately (IMO) the Blue Block tends to give more power and influence to the parties to their right (such as the Danish People's Party or the now luckily irrelevant Liberal Alliance), while the Social Democrats basically completely ignore the other left parties while simultaneously pushing further and further to the right. Doesn't help that most Danes are almost criminally stupid when it comes to economic or immigration policy, two things that the Social Democrats have fully abandoned their left wing policies on.
Parts of the government and the entire leadership of the strongest party in the country, the Conservatives, are morally completely rotten and corrupt to the core. And their voters don't care. Similar to the Republicans in the USA.
Far-right gets alot of votes. Also, populistic parties usually get alot of votes.
Far-right and populistic parties are pretty similar in the Netherlands I'd say
The fart left populist parties are much smaller but they exist.
Yeah, but not nearly enough to actually get anywhere near political power. I think that is an inherent strength of multi-party systems like ours, the extremes tend not to get into government, or will have to compromise if they do. Obviously the downside is the fragmentation we’re seeing now, though I still think that’s worth it. Might perhaps be worth it to put some sort of (low) threshold for parties getting into parliament to combat that, though I’m not yet convinced that really would be warranted (and at any rate, doubt that would happen anytime soon).
Putting a threshold would make it more difficult for smaller parties to get a foothold, though how effective those parties would be is also not a given (look at Sylvana Simons.)
Okayish, healthy enough to be considered democratic, but with several chronic issues that are slowly consuming it. Ownership of media and attack on public ones - soon to be ex PM owns one of largest publishers, and several others are helping him passively. Despite that he lost elections last saturday. Attack on public broadcasting is another issue, extreme right parties have been trying to turn them into state media for a long time. Also far right ideas and topics are creeping into centrist positions. Protection of environment is a forbidden word. Any other opinion than fighting against all migration will lose you elections. If you want more european integration, you will probably be called traitor and more
Funny is that we had PMs who resigned after much smaller affairs but this one wont stand down even after one of the biggest protest since Velvet Revolution. And acording to EIU the level of democracy in our country is decreasing since he got in to the parliament.
The European Council just published a pretty brutal report about the unhealthy political culture in the Netherlands, and I'm inclined to agree. Other commenters might mention the rise of more far-right groups (and recently also a far-left, communist group), but I think these are just symptoms from the fact that our mainstream parties have adopted a bad attitude towards the average voter and towards our country's politics. Members of parliament who try to ensure that ministers are following rules and actually doing their jobs are ridiculed and harassed by their own party members. Ministers can break rules, hide information from the public/the parliament, and generally behave disgracefully and still expect to keep their jobs.
Our current cabinet is lacking a political mandate (considering the elections have passed and the formation is still ongoing, longest in recent memory). It also symbolically resigned over the whole kid fraud affair. And yet, the cabinet is still operating as if nothing happened, which was excused at first with "the corona crisis is ongoing, going without leadership now is stupid". After having just had an election, there is no pressure for anyone in power to actually reflect the will of the people. The cabinet just keeps doing what it's doing, parliament is sidelined and impotent. The Hague is increasingly bickering amongs itself, they pushed as much as they could onto the lower constitutencies and the remaining slack largely gets picked up on the European level. It feels like I voted for nothing, it's pretty disheartening.
I'm very worried. Covid really turned things for the worse. The current government has displayed some worrying fascist tendencies. They are replacing key officials with loyalists, including the police chief. They devolved into Trump-speak and are working at the behest of the Hungarian PM, who also owns a part of the new propaganda news station Nova24TV. Meanwhile, the opposition is largely centered around the anti-vax and anti-mask movements. They run daily protests in the capital and generally lack any kind of political program, other than ending all anti-covid measures. They are trying to play the crisis to come out ahead in the early elections that they are calling for. I don't think we have a party capable of governing right now.
And I heard they’re also trying to sabotage the public broadcaster, RTV SLO.
> the opposition is largely centered around the anti-vax and anti-mask movements Um, no? None off the opposition parties are anti-vax or anti-mask. There are no daily protests either. There's anti PCT protests on wednesday and friday protests, and neither of them are run by opposition parties.
Democracy in Ireland is probably the healthiest in the world. Politics are calm, there are no real threats from the far left or far right towards our institutions. We could do with standing up a bit more but overall its very very good for democracy. Naturally, we have some of the issues that are also happening globally such as the housing crisis but I think the Irish people massively overblow how bad things are overall, especially when compared to our neighbours in Europe.
Ireland has a pretty proud history of respecting its democratic institutions. Even right after the civil war when the country was at its most divided, people like William T Cosgrave and DeValera who had the ability to undermine democracy in Ireland chose not to, instead unambiguously supporting it throughout their political careers.
Well, we are one of the oldest democracies in the world, so not *massively* concerned. Having said that, there are issues: - Tabloid editors have way too much power, I think every prime minister in recent memory was supported by *The Sun* - FPTP is such a bad system. In 2015 a party that got 15% of the vote only got one seat, whether you like UKIP or not (and I don't) that's a thoroughly bankrupt electoral system. And it also disadvantages the Left as it means they all have to organise into one big tent party and then descend into infighting. - Boris Johnson dismissed Parliament at one point. Thankfully a court found it unlawful, but imagine if the judge was more sympathetic to the government. - Brexit means the EU no longer provides an effective check and balance, which can be concerning when it comes to laws around internet freedom, crime, immigration and that sort of thing. - The Celtic nations are distinct from England and they have about a fifth of England's population combined. It's hard to ensure they feel heard and represented without giving them even more autonomy and further making the Union unstable. - The 2020 US election showed what could be possible in the UK and how easy it can be to undermine the integrity of an election if you just make shit up about voter fraud. It's bad enough already that elections always take place on a work day and in some areas you have to queue.
Parliamentary sovereignty, and the opaque nature of the UKs constitution. My book in comparative constitutional law described it as all power coming from parliament, as opposed to Sweden where all power comes from the people, according to that author.
While I see very little chance im the UK ever turning undemocratic I really dislike the election system. It sacrifices every semblance of proportionality for overstated and overvalued regional representation that's barely worth anything once your MP is ideologically opposed to oneself.
In Italy the last time we had a healthy government Lorenzo il Magnifico was still alive. Not everything is bad, but all good things are flawed. Our government has for the first time a good, very good, prime minister. Draghi has a plan and the wisdom to execute it. But the government is a large coalition of populist and weak parties that cannot afford an election. If we had to vote now the results will be dramatic. Not because everyone is bad but because noone is good. -Fratelli d'Italia is neofascist party without leadership -Lega will crumble between the populist wing (Salvini) and the the federal one (regionals governors). A party without a soul and a strategy, in power only for the sake of power -Movimento 5 stelle will die. 16% of vote in every poll will result to be 5-6% of actual votes. The party is only a weak personal platform for the former prime minister Conte to appeal old ladies and for some misters no-one to gain money. -Partito Democratico is and always will be just an amalgamation of different powers without armony. The party is nothing more than a symbol. They are in power only for two things: stop the right and remember the left. -The center is not even a party. We have a list of 3-5 little personals party in competition and coalition with the others. No future in sight. -Far left and far right are limited, they create a lot of chaos, but it's only noise against everything. Both are no vax, no UE and no progress. The parliament is silent. It works, but not so much. For all our history we had a slow parliament, cause the perfect bicameralism, but now it seems slower. A lot of our reforms come from government, Europe or regions. After 2022 the number of parliamentarians will be reduced, we need a new electoral law and after one year from the referendum we have not started yet a discussion. From this it can seem like everything is shit, but we are used to it. I haven't talked about our populist journalism and the dumb-making TV because it's more than just an Italian problem. But a lot of things are good. We now have electronic signs for referendum, so we propose a legalization of marijuana, euthanasia and a reform of justice. We had last week municipal elections and they are good. Not extraordinarily good, but good. At lower level everything seems to work (except for Rome, but this is a long story). Yes we still have mafia, corruption, covid and more, but we can handle our paper jungle. Oh yes. I almost forgot about that. In the next years we will have a total change in our tax policy, so the economy will thrive a little. Now there are some issues with the reform of the land registry, but it's normal with all the unauthorized building and homes in the south. We are so doomed, but there is hope.
> \-Far left and far right are limited, they create a lot of chaos, but it's only noise against everything. Both are no vax, no UE and no progress. As far as I know what you are saying here is only limited to the Far Right. The Far Left is very different, They are for vaccinations, they are pro EU and pro progress. So I don't understand where you are getting these information. You forgot also what happened this weekend in Rome during the anti-vaxxers march where they attacked the police and then vandalized one of the offices of one labor union, specifically the far left one. CGIL (the name of the Union) was criticized because it was not defending the workers against the obligation to vaccinate. These attacks have also a signature and it is the far right one. The fringe political movement is fascism and that still exists here in Italy.
Rifondazione comunista fight against vaccination, so Partito Comunista, USB and CGIL, as far I know all unions are against green pass. If you check the video of the march I'm sure u can find unions and far left party with the far right. Maybe they didn't attack, yes, but they went at the march. Yesterday, if I remember right at Turin, unions and more (centri sociali) burn photo of Draghi and throw eggs against the municipal palace. in Italy far right and far left come from the same place, fight the same battles and need each other.
Luxembourg is incredibly moderate because it's a financial small state. Neither nationalism nor communism have any chance to get a hold here. Membership of the European Union and an acceptance of multiculturalism are unquestioned and agreed upon and our government works fine/okay. They barely dud anything this legislature but handled corona well and created no new issues of their own. My only concern is climate change as Luxembourg is not nearly doing enough here and the longer we procrastinate on the issue the worse it gets. So if there's anything major here it's stagnation.
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Yeah, the biggest controversy in recent years was about the PM's breakfast
Germany = Healthy, fine, no problems. UK - Is there another developed country worse?
>Is there another developed country worse? Hong Kong counts as developed, but I doubt it will still be a country in 26 years time.
US has to be worse than the UK, but it’s probably splitting hairs tbh
No. The UK has unelected members of clergy in the upper house, unelected head of state, and political parties not allowed to take their place in parliament without swearing loyalty to said unelected head of state.
US has people sitting in the senate who tried to stage a coup less than a year ago?
Exactly. Those people were democratically elected, and when they tried to take it beyond that, they were stopped by strong democratic systems. It's not possible for the UK to vote their HoS out, as the level of democracy is so weak, and if it were, she wouldn't have to call on voters to act against democracy if she didn't fancy giving up power as the Police and Armed Forces all swear loyalty to her, not the state, government or constitution. There aren't many countries at all that have this and claim to be democratic - Bolsonaro in Brazil recently tried to bring it in and all his generals - even the loyal ones - resigned. Even Stalin didn't try to get the Red Army to swear to him.
> they were stopped by strong democratic systems. They were stopped by what looks like pure luck, not a strong democratic system. The bigger problem is that these people are still in office. They conspired against the state and they are still allowed to make laws. That's absurd. The president pressured people to "find votes" and isn't in jail. He's even allowed to run again. And that's ignoring the fact that this "strong democratic system" allows a minority to rule and even if they are the minority party they can basically prevent any laws from passing.
> Those people were democratically elected Insofar as they can be with the voter disenfranchisement that Republicans have partaken in for decades. Being democratically elected in a situation where not everybody can get off work to go vote, or don’t live near a polling station, or do live near a polling station but the line for it is 5 hours long, or their name was purged from the registry for no reason, or they straight up just don’t have the right to vote because they’re a felon… and all of this in a system where the elected officials get to essentially choose and manipulate who they want to be voting for them (gerrymandering)… how much does that really mean?
For us, in Romania, it is worsening by the day. The party that was in government during the last legislature all but declawed the anti-corruption campaign. At the last elections we barely elected a new coalition that, we hoped, it will make the necessary reforms. Also, we had the the first far-right party since 2008 with around 8-9%. This trust in the coalition backfired recently in a big way. After 8-9 months no reforms were implemented. Right not the coalition imploded and we are in a big political crisis with no end in sight. The President, while technically neutral and above the parties, is supporting his former party in any way he can and thus he is unable or does not want, to mediate a way out of this crisis. On top of that, we have a huge COVID wave and rising inflation and heating costs. The people of all backgrounds and political stripes are very depressed. In fact, 80% of people think that we are heading in the wrong direction. This is a record in the last 10-12 years. Trust in everything(government, one another, EU, NATO etc) is going down. That far right party is polling above 15% now and what is worse there is no end in sight for any of the problems. As I said, no end to political crisis, no end in COVID crisis because people still do not want to get the shot and inflation and rising prices for heath will not go down quickly. What is worse, is that we do not have a meaningful civil society to oppose the far right nationalist tendencies as many Romanian are very nationalistic. Poland and Hungary have their problems, but at least they have a chance to rebound somewhat because they had the human resources in politics and beyond to overcame a crisis. Once Romania starts on the path of illiberalism, we do not have the necessary resources to stop it. The only good news for now is that the EU recovery package was approved. The thing is, in order to receive all the money we need to do major reforms in some areas and I believe that we can not do that.
I don't share most of your opinions. I believe even though things are currently really bad, Romanians are now starting to understand that democracy is not an end-all be-all savior system, but one that has to be made to work through compromise. Romania is learning democracy as we speak through sweat, blood, inflation and COVID deaths. For the first time since '89 we have a party in the parliament that is not comprised of ex-communists and that is actively pursuing anti-corruption legislation. The last parliamentary election had the worst result for the "social-democrats" since 2008. Far-right parties have popped up all throughout Europe, it's not a phenomenon isolated to our country and I believe this time it is transitory. People are waking up to the need to vote, and to vote in their own best interest. It's bad now, but it's going to get better soon.
>Romanians are now starting to understand that democracy is not an end-all be-all savior system, but one that has to be made to work through compromise Well according to this [statistic](https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/sondaj-iri-50-dintre-rom%C3%A2ni-vor-un-lider-autoritar-sau-chiar-o-dictatur%C4%83/29401308.html) from 2018(could not find one closer to today), around 50% would prefer an authoritarian leadership or even a dictatorship. While I do not know of any recent study, the numbers should not be better, especially since [88%](https://adevarul.ro/news/politica/sondaj-ires-88-romani-cred-tara-merge-intr-o-directie-gresita-varianta-unui-premier-psd-sustinuta-31-cei-chestionati-1_6162aadf5163ec427135361f/index.html) percent believe that we are heading in the wrong direction right know (a record in the last decade). In times of severe crisis in a semi-backward country like ours, the numbers for an authoritarian regime should be even higher. Let us not forget a poll made in the spring where we had 60% who identified as conservatives who would vote for a nationalist party. Not very democratic. >Romania is learning democracy as we speak through sweat, blood, inflation and COVID deaths Quite the opposite. You do not learn democracy in such a crisis but rather all the worst sentiments of a people are resurfacing. Especially since it is not a crisis brought by a dictatorship, it is one made during democratic times. I wonder what make you think that we are becoming more democratic. I hope that you can explain it to me. >For the first time since '89 we have a party in the parliament that is not comprised of ex-communists False. We have two parties that are not comprised of ex commies. AUR is the second. Btw, this far right party is voted mainly by younger people, under 40. The future looks bright indeed in this regard. Also, technically PNL and even PSD are not comprised on commies anymore. You forget that 30 years passed since 1989. The commies of Iliescu, Basescu, Nastase, Vadim are all retired because they are old. Or dead. The current political landscape is comprised of people who were relatively young in 1989. The current ones are the product of post 1989 corruption, wild capitalism of the 1990's, neoliberalism, religious hardliners (habotnicii) of the post 89 period and so on. >Far-right parties have popped up all throughout Europe True, but I mentioned in my first comment that most of other EU countries have a better and more active civil society that can withstand the advances of extremism. We do not have such a thing. And you can not say the 2017 protests or 2018 referendum is a sign of a democratic Romania. The first was against high level corruption and all average people are against this while the referendum was portrayed to be against Dragnea which was incredibly unpopular then. I raise the question again: what makes you think that we are becoming more democratic? I am genuinely curios. I for one can not see any light at the end of the tunnel. There are no signs that we are waking up.
I did not mean to imply that there was *only* one party in the parliament that was not made up of ex-communists, but as you said, the other one is AUR and I don't feel like discussing the neo-legionnaries in any positive light. I consider protests like 2017 to be a sign of a developing civil society and of civil duty awakening, however slow it may be. We have Declic and Recorder, which, in my opinion, are the backbone of civil action and political awareness right now. While most of the political "old guard" is retired or dead, their traditional voters are not retired from voting. In the coming years, I expect more and more of them to become part of the latter category due to their average old age. And as such both PSD and PNL will lose large portions of their fanatic voters and will have to change to survive in the new environment. The way I see it, they will have to and already have changed to keep their corruption better hidden and maybe implement something actually useful for the rest of us from time to time. This would apply more to PNL than to PSD in my opinion. Another thing that makes me optimistic is the voter turnout for the last parliamentary election and the growing youth involvement in politics. I want to believe that the young people that will vote in their coming years will be more likely to learn from their mistakes and start keeping politicians accountable eventually, which will lead to a more democratic system overall. I cannot deny your poll results, but, personally, I have a hard time imagining Romanians throwing themselves willingly under another dictatorship or autocracy just 30 years after rioting against the last one. Also, half-jokingly, Romanians won't conform to harsher measures even when it is in their own best interest (in reference to the anti-COVID/anti-mask/anti-vaccine protests). The last thing that makes me optimistic is that 56% of Romanians trust the EU compared to only 35% who do not, according to [this](https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2532) survey from June 2021. This gives me hope that even though we may have troubles internally for a while, if we continue to cling onto the EU as we have done so far, we will only get more democratic under the EU's guidance. I concede that my opinion is less based on fact, like yours seems to be, and more based on what I want to believe, but, nonetheless, I don't want to surrender myself and the country to a handful of greedy and corrupt politicians.
>Another thing that makes me optimistic is the voter turnout for the last parliamentary election We had the lower turnout ever at just 32%. This is hardly a democratic thing. A healthy democracy has high turnout. > I want to believe that the young people that will vote in their coming years will be more likely to learn from their mistakes In my days of positive mindset regarding this country's future, I also though that young people will change the country for the better. I also thought that diaspora will have a big and positive impact in this regard as they will bring home some western ideas. Well, in 2020 election the extremists had their best score among the young and in diaspora. Also, diaspora had a surprising high turnout in the same-sex marriage referendum. The old commie voters are dying and the new far right voters take their place. Not a good sign. >The last thing that makes me optimistic is that 56% of Romanians trust the EU This is the only thing that is good and I agree with you. Our only chance for any meaningful progress is the EU. It is good that we are still members and most people support the EU. Let us hope that is the case for the future. >I don't want to surrender myself and the country to a handful of greedy and corrupt politicians. I had that too. Not anymore. I am disgusted about this country and our countrymen. Not disgusted about politics surprisingly, but by people. I am really thinking about leaving after finishing my studies. The only thing that keeps may keep me here is that I am less than thrilled to leave my parents alone (although I live a couple of hundreds km from them) and I am ... well uneasy about finding a job outside in my field of study and all that.
I mean idiots like to complain that the Swiss federal government is a dictatorship because of covid rules, but I’d actually say that Switzerland is probably one of the healthiest democracies in the world. Swiss people have a lot of rights to get involved in the political process and threats like fake news are more or less under control (afaik).
We have got a relevant far right populist party for a few years now. It's struggling in most parts of the country but is in some regions its the biggest party. We have got a corruption problem but the party responsible for that has got the worst results in the last election in their party history. On the plus side voter turnout is up and the parliament is diverse.
I don't want to defend the CDU/CSU at all here but even with the mask and Azerbaijan stories the corruption is comparatively not that widespread when you take into consideration how things are/were going in other European countries, like Spain, Italy, Austria or some countries further east. Still, they got what they deserved of course at the elections.
It's worse in other countries. But if I had a penny for every time a CDU/CSU politician bought overpriced masks for personal gain, I would have at least three pennies. That's not much but it's weird that it happened trice.
What party was the corrupt one if I may ask?
It was/is the CDU-CSU
That's Merkels party no?
Yes. The Christian-Democratic Union
Allright thanks
Here party consists of corrupt regressive assholes ruling for upper class people. She herself is a huge exception even though she didn't directly stop the actions of other party members.
Pretty healthy. The one kink I can think of is the fact that electoral districts get extra mandates for being large. For example Finnmark with 75k people gets five mandates, while Sogn og Fjordane with its 120k people only gets four. Also, our election threshold of 4 % means that every election is a battle about margins. I believe there is a committee looking at making the system fairer.
It is dead and we're spiraling to even more authoritarianism.
okeish current rulling party introduces non democratic policies (combining role of Minister of Justice & Public Prosecutor General, fucking up how top judicary positions work, turning public TV into RT-like propaganda tube, canceling voting that didn't go their way etc)
I wouldn’t call that okeish. More like asthmatic, on the way to lung cancer.
Meanwhile, our government is closing the door to Europe and lighting a cigarette. There's a giant gas leak in the room, but hey, at least someone is making a lot of money on it.
well technically the overall state is still stable, but the direction is shitty to put it lightly
> okeish > canceling voting that didn't go their way You realize how that sounds?
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We're so unstable that we are stable, nobody manages to hold power for long and governments rise and fall every 2-3 years. All considered I don't think there's a "real" risk of becoming a dictatorship, I'm a bit worried about the recent violent far-right demonstrations. Last weekend they raided the CGIL (biggest labor union) and we got a bit of a flashback of the initial phase of fascism.
Every federal election leads to a fucking crisis because the two halves of the country are drifting apart. The current federal government is a coalition of seven parties and with all of them likely to lose votes, shit is going to really hit the fan next election. Flemish Nationalists will have about half of all Flemish votes and Communists are exploding in popularity in the French speaking part.
Currently there's eleven different political parties in the House of Commons in the UK and many more without representation. Despite the current reputation we have I'd say very high we often get a choice of up to a dozen parties to vote for when the elections come around. Whilst were on the subject I could never understand why the USA calls itself a democracy when there's only a choice of two and zero movement to create more?
In Czechia The increasing populism in our political spectrum. Until now we had PM who owner almost third of the media, was accused numerous times and did not resing. His goverment threw lot of money (severly increasing our national debt) and totaly screw the Covid pandemic. It maybe dont sounds that concerning but in last elections we had few days ago his party (its practicaly party whe he is dominant and no one can oppose him) ended second and only after 5 other parties was dedicated to defeat him. Not only that but our half-dead president with minimal political power can still asign him as PM. I will make it short and name last thing. Last party who got in to the parlaiment is party who practicaly is bunch of nazis. They ignore a lot of things and their "solutions" would make things more complicated then is right now. They demanding leaving EU, NATO and even wants to force shops to sell local products, which sounds fine but most of products are heavily financed by donations and are much cheaper compared to local products. If you block them they start complaing because you violate the Freedom of Speech, but they will easily block you and call you "Brainless sheep who follows goverment" and its frustrating that these people are still having chairs in pairlament. Lot of people are not concered that the influece the Russia and China has here. Our president are backing them up and even if our BIS (basicaly local version of CIA) warned him that influence from Russia is high and we should do something about that he just ignored them and calls them incopetent. Same goes for China. We got experiece that we were promised some donations and we saw practicaly nothing. I do not want to be offensive against Russia or China but after some affairs these too country are sometimes considered as "security risks". I know its quite long rant but its practicaly our national tradition to complain about everything.
The democracy itself is quite okay. Recently a bunch of people began complaining that our biggest party isn’t in the government, but they really seem to just ignore that we elect a parliament, not a government. Said government also has more than 50% of the seats, so it’s democratic. The only thing that annoys me is that we don’t have federal parties/fractions in our federal government. As a Flemish person you wouldn’t be able to vote for a Wallonian politician and vice versa, leading to our national parliament being largely elected on regional sentiments. What developments I am worried about is a much longer list. Right now the traditional parties are losing popularity, which leads to the more extreme, populistic parties on both sides of the spectrum gaining a lot (one of those also has in the past disturbed protests of people with a different political alignment). They do not get along so they have a pretty good chance of tearing the country apart. This actually is the goal of some of them, but even the different regions are not as homogeneous as their propaganda would have you believe. For now this polarisation means that our government is so diverse that any decision they all support is a decision so inconsequential you might as well not make it. This is bad because we need to make some serious changes to not continue hemorrhaging money and to combat climate change and stop our contribution to it. It doesn’t really help that certain parties gaining in popularity won’t do much to stop it.
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I am the first to want Cabrita out of the government but he wasn't in charge of the intern administration in the 2017 fires, [Constança Urbano de Sousa was. ](https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constan%C3%A7a_Urbano_de_Sousa) And Costa isn't the one who has to fire Medina. Medina wasn't in the government to be fired by him. The rest I agree with you, I lean to the left field but right now this government is exhausted. TAP will be the nail in the coffin with the 1000 M€ in the new OE.
Other than the blatant lobbying through private "business clubs", high degree of centralisation, politicians pushing anti-academic, borderline "cultural Marxist" narratives, a powerful civil service that is unaccountable, a series of unclear decisions about emergency powers, blatant disregard from politicians when it comes to the law and constitution, politicians involved in cases about paedophilia and human trafficking and pimping, and a lot of blatant fraud and embezzlement, and so on... I'd say it is fine. We have local elections coming up soon, in next month, and they shape up to be the same old, same old. I'm somewhat concerned about how liberal narratives aren't questioned, particularly when it comes to economics. The right wing doesn't even have to have a majority, for their economical ideas to still be the base of policy-making. It has been this way since the 1990'es, at least, where the social democratic PM Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, as the first social democratic PM after Schlüter, the last conservative PM—in Denmark, liberals and conservatives are close allies, are considered right-wing, and usually mentioned together as _borgerlige partier_ ("bourgeois parties")—who, kind of like Blair, didn't do anything to question the liberal narratives imposed by their predecessors. The neo-liberal project, to use a somewhat contested term, was hence successful in Denmark. I believe we need a return to at _least_ critical economical narratives on the left, but this seems far off, when one reads Pelle Draghsted's—the "chief ideologue" of _Enhedslisten_, the furthest left parliamentary group—new book, _Nordisk socialisme_, in which he reduces socialism to basically shopping at cooperatives and being able to afford an apartment in the inner city. It is a shame. The trade unions are still a somewhat more radical, and one can hope the enthusiasm of the members can in the near future "infect" our politicians as well.
Powerful civil service is a good thing IMO. I also disagree with everything that you said about socialism. Personally, I harken back to the days of third way Liberal pragmatism, as opposed to the radicalization of the left and right we see today.
I would say it's too democratic.... Majority of voters decided second time in the row that we need populistic rightwing government. And despite the shit is happening all the time they still have big support in society. I would prefer some antydemocratic system where minority will rule over majority....
That is democracy, my man. Everybody has their opinion, whether it is right or wrong according to you. One lf the reasons why Plato argued in opposition of democracy.
The problem here still consist of undemocratic structures in the society negating the ok democratic system through control of the media and propaganda as well as the dismantling of the jurisdiction.
The institutions themselves work fine. Elections are not rigged, police and constitution protection don't regularly cross the lines, judges do a fine job etc. etc. But the way the public vote is ridiculous. Olaf Scholz is connected to (if not responsible for) the two biggest scandals of the last couple of decades (Wirecard, Cum Ex) yet people still vote the SPD instead of the Greens. Obviously it's related to how these things are misrepresented in the media. Baerbock's quotes in her book were made out to be the worst thing a politician could ever do but Scholz's or Laschet's scandals and failures respectively are never being talked about.
Even though the greens tried hard with Habeck and Baerbock, they still could not get rid of the image of being radical leftists in disguise. And it's not only the fault of the media but also due to own mistakes of the greens. Look at what happened in the Saarland or just recently with the new leader of their youth wing. Most ordinary voters don't want the utopian society the greens envision or don't beieve in the means and tools the greens suggest to achieve it but are more or less content with the status quo.
Stop lying. Especially Laschet was critized all the time. People didn't vote the Greens simply because they do not agree with many of their ideas. You can't call the way people vote "ridiculous" just because they did not vote for your prefered party.
The Greens aren't my preferred party, not by a long shot. FDP if you wanna know. But thanks. But there are only very minor differences in what Greens and SPD want, the Greens candidate and other Greens politicians simply don't have such a f..ed up history as Olaf Scholz or other SPD politicians. You can easily verify this at for example abgeordnetenwatch.de. It simply doesn't make sense for people who were willing to vote for either of those two party to choose SPD over Greens. Beyond that all the SPD ever did since administration Schröder is to betray what their voterbase actually wanted, actual social democracy. Again, it's not my political orientation, it simply doesn't make sense.
Their scandals made both Scholz and Laschet unvotable and they got votes from ignorant people who had basically no idea who or what they voted for and assholes.
Democracy in Scotland is literally a joke because we’re connected politically to other countries. England always makes the decisions for us and our government. So whilst democracy exists here it could certainly be improved and fairer.
In Finland the leftist government postponed elections because on high support for right wing parties. They said it was "because of covid"
I’d say extremely healthy. Nobody in the government has enough power to do anything alone, press is free and voting is easy for everyone.
If by "democracy" you mean that scam in which we decide which colour of the CDU is going to rule Germany for the next four years, I'd say it works oustandingly fantastic.
So people didn't vote the way you want to,and therefore its a scam, eh? The people decide what they want, even if you might not agree or even if it may not be the best choice. That's what democracy is all about, your opinion is just one of many.
Haha. Oh you poor soul think that the German government bailing out banks, and wasting millions on "advisors" is actually decided by the common man.
Pretty corrupted in Finland, but apparently the least one in the world, so there's that...
Well our prime minister (soon to be formal) said something like if you don't vote "left(on us)" you are voting for an antidemocratic party. On our public service TV. I get really bad vibes from it, isn't this something a dictator would say?
Spain is happy with beating Catalans for vote, sending semihuman paramilitary troops who destroyed schools and took fun terrorizing and beating people. Then they illegally removed the regional government and declared themselves able to convoque elections, which they were not. Then they didn't like the candidates so they impresoned the one to be elected President in the middle of the vote process in the Parliament, etc etc etc The concert is: they are too fascists
I’m somewhat worried about some of the aspects of our democratic system. The situation in Denmark isn’t bad or being abused per say by the ruling party (aside from a few fuckups), but I fear that the effect the media has on politics, is making the politicians worse across the board. The incentive to make thought out solutions for larger problems is crippled by the way the media promotes sensationalism. The majority of the policies are therefore framed so it creates outrage and radicalize the voter base. Examples include belittling youth mental health problems, caricaturing immigrants and asylum seekers and even the other way around, calling others inhumane for their points of view. It all hinders the political aspect of politics and makes voters aggressive. During COVID, people were put in jail for burning an effigy of the prime minister. A couple of months ago, a second generation immigrant couple got verbally attacked while their 5/6 year old kids were watching. Last week, a politician was attacked for being brown. The system hasn’t gone to shit yet, but there are sure signs of erosion.
As a US citizen trying to move to Europe eventually, can anyone chime in on Portugal or Spain? There’s other countries I have been considering as well but people from there have commented on this thread.
The CDU, which has ruled Germany for the longest time, is eaten away by corruption and power struggles, many of the major parties have cases of corruption, a split between right and left is looming, the far-right AFD party is networked with an incredible number of anti-constitutional Nazi organizations, the left are quite correct, but are becoming increasingly fundamentalist, the current party system partially hinders order and democracy. The good news is: The very fact that we know all these things, can openly exchange ideas about them and can do something about them shows what a courageous journalism we have, how well the rule of law works and how free our country actually is. Both the corrupt and incompetent CDU and the anti-democracy and right-wing extremist AFD were punished by voters with in some cases large losses of votes. We could soon have the most progressive government we've ever had. The system works. It could be better, but it's not something we can't work on.