All across the world we can witness party leaders rigging the game in their favor
If there’s one thing history has taught us it is that those in power are always loath to relinquish that power. The politically powerful behave the same the world over–from Julius Caesar right up to any sitting Senator or Congressperson, one thing is clear: the intoxicant of power is addictive.
And political junkies will do and say anything to hang onto it.
In an especially volatile election year in the US, we’ve witnessed no end to the chicanery and dirty tricks the two major parties have employed to keep their anointed favorites in the limelight, shutting out the unwashed masses who are attempting to, you know, participate in a free democracy.
But on the other side of the world, a similar struggle is taking place, as the major parties in Australia attempt to shut out any smaller parties that stand to challenge the status quo.
In particular, the upstart 21st Century Australia Party. In 2013 there was a major controversy in Australia when the elections commission there denied the party access to the ballot, forcing the party’s leader and founder Jamie McIntyre to run as an independent. The party has since been recognized, but there is much bitterness still remaining over what many people thought of as deliberate delaying tactics to keep McIntyre off the ballot.
Now, new Australian Senate proposals would prevent third parties from dealing amongst themselves in order to get representation outside of the two major parties.
The rules, said 21st Century Australia Party leader McIntyre, “…are not designed just to stop the system from being gamed, but to entrench the two major parties and the Greens and prevent any chance of minor parties challenging the status quo. It’s being changed to stop micro parties from preferencing each other in deals to get minor parties elected, which will remove much needed political competition. Voters are clearly over the outdated political system designed for the 19th Century.”
This scenario surely must ring some bells with watchers of the US elections this year.
In brief:
• Democratic party chief Debbie Schultz-Wasserman has repeatedly manipulated the primary process in Hillary Clinton’s favor, reducing the number of debates from over 20 to a mere six, booked them for the lowest viewer nights and times, she briefly withheld dem voter contacts from the Sanders campaign on trumped-up charges of malfeasance, among other things. The recent Arizona primary was rife with irregularities, including severely reduced voting sites and hours-long waits for voters that some say were deliberately set up.
• On the Republican side, desperate politicos at the point of freaking out over the ascendancy of Donald Trump have publicly explored all kinds of trickery to unseat him. There are whispers of a brokered convention, and 2012’s nominee Mitt Romney came right out and instructed Republican voters to vote “anyone but Trump” in their respective states to prevent him winning the needed delegates to win the nomination.
And to some observers it is this exact heavy-handedness that proves how corrupt and desperate the global power system really is, in Australia, the US and beyond.
As McIntyre put it, “You only have to look at America and see why Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are so popular, despite the establishment hating it.”
Indeed, its entirely possible we may be on the cusp of a major shift in power structures around the globe as it becomes apparent that the people no longer trust or believe in the people who are supposed to be representing them, yet seem only to represent the interests of global capital.
Here’s to change!