Issue 5 - Democracy and the multiparty political system

By: TOM CRUMPACKER*
"If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson, 1789"
ABSTRACT The multiparty political system can destroy real democracy in the name of pluralism. Where electoral parties are not based on differing fundamental values, as in United States, they unnecessarily interfere in the direct relationship between the constituent and his supposed representative. They are conducive to class and special interest manipulation (especially with money) and therefore both cause and result from commercial oligarchy. Cubans learned this in the first part of the 20th century, and they also learned that their only hope of autonomy and nationhood is unity in their struggle for independence and self determination. They are not again going to submit voluntarily to outside commercial exploitation. Our impoverished political institutions are not what they need or desire.