(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)

The existence of political parties is why politicians can never have real values or accountability and this is why the public can never have a proper what more, a fair representation. 

Put simply, politicians are expendable servants of a larger entity - the party, who's survival and succession is everything. That's probably why the Malaysian constitution (and also the constitution of many countries) did not even mention anything about political parties and that's why jumping from one political party to another cannot be stopped using legal means, because its unconstitutional to do so.

Real diversity of thought and all the subtle shades of grey that make up the truth of matters are shut out in favour of black and white polarisation of opinion by the political parties and not the people that voted for them that they are supposed to represent.

If all politicians were independent, it would mean that they actually were required to speak their own mind rather than tow the line that the party dictates to them. They would need to innovate and to be different, to stand up and to gain reputation in order to build widespread appeal to the voters in the area. 

And these are the exact ideals of the Athenian leader Cleisthenes when he brought forth political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”), the original idea of democracy. Back then, even in ancient Greece, elections, a key component of democracy were considered to be in themselves oligarchic, where power rests in the hands of the few and, more particularly, the few extremely rich citizens – or “oligarchs”, who are also known as “plutocrats” or just “fat cats”, which still holds true until now.

Democracy, in its current form,  has changed its meaning from anything like the “people power” of ancient Greece and has seemingly lost its purpose as a reflection let alone realisation of the popular will.

Under the current system, if politicians don't play ball for the party or jump  parties, they will be called traitors and be the party's sworn enemy. But, technically, the only real and true mandate that is required for the Member of Parliament to honour is the mandate of the voters in the respective voting area or constituency. These are the people that the elected member of parliament is supposed to represent. His/her voice in the parliament are to represent the voices of his constituents and along with that, he/she carries their ideals and supports causes and issues which his/her voters support, being merely a conduit of the people's wishes. 

Notice also that entrance into politics is easier for those with huge amounts of capital. Going into the elections involves huge amounts of money and this actually provides resistance to those with true ideals yet lacking in resources. That, being the case, an option that many have taken are by playing divisive issues to gain support. If one looks beneath all the rhetorics of issues that most politicians play, in actual case its only the greed for power that really motivates them. It's NEVER about race, religion, democracy, liberalism, freedom, economy for the people. These are merely horses being rode upon to achieve their ultimate goal of total and absolute  power.

Simple observations can reveal the real objectives of the people jostling for power. The general rule of thumb is that people will become more conservative when they grow older. The ageing process makes people more conservative  because older people have different lifestyles, and therefore different priorities when voting, thus they become more right-wing, authoritarian, and rigid. The decline in intellectual curiosity as well as the capacity to process information make older people more resistant to change and as life experiences become more constrained and predictable, its easier to be at ease with amicable environments rather than venturing into unfamiliar territories. Of course, there are outliers contrary to this rule and they may have their own reasons for being so.

Currently, both ethics and sensible policy are both left behind since if one faction has chosen a direction for a given issue, the other must oppose and the politician is forced to support something that may be inappropriate at best or damaging nonsense at worst. True values, beliefs and integrity matter little in a career political party based system of democracy, what more the desires of the people that voted them in. Thus why huge amounts of capital is necessary for one to enter politics as it is more commonly used to appease the key leaders of smaller groups of people in the area.

Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the mass media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. And with social media and the Internet, it is much easier to topple governments by merely causing and spreading hate, anger and distrust to the people by misinformation − such as using fake news to manipulate the public opinion. And when the fake news is repeated by influencers in large numbers for long periods of time, it becomes the gospel truth.

A much commonly and easier route rather than drumming support for their own faction is to spread negative sentiment towards the opposition parties. Limited to few options, voters are more easily coaxed into voting the lesser of two evils, not of their choice but the only available one. Thus, politics of hate are a much easier route taken by political parties as arousing hate for their opponents is cheaper than making voters like them, which requires much more effort, time and resources.

Political parties are the backdoor through which corruption enters politics. For this reason alone party politics should end. It has had its day in the sun, now its time to retire. 

Governance of a country should become much less adversarial, divisive and ideological and from the ideals of the forefathers who wrote the Constituition, the spirit of the Goverment was to be more systematic, scientific and open.