D2 posted:caribny posted:D2 posted:My hope is that a strong middle ground begins to develop as the scattering of small parties gird themselves and understand the nature of the fight means they come together.
The Guyana constitution gives the winning party power, even if it merely gets 40% of the votes. A bunch of parties collectively getting 5% isnt going to have impact. I suspect by now that Guyanese find 3rd parties a joke in the same way as Americans do.
Guyana and America has two electorate system. We have PR in a one constituency system. They have federalism and normalizing representation to mediate population size in small states.
We had the UF and the AFC and GAP. How much impact did those parties have independent of the PNC and the PPP? None.
Guyanese want a party that has a chance to win, so we are left with the PNC and the PPP. The smaller parties will have to enter into alliance with one or the other to have impact. History then shows that they are gobbled up and spat out.
The larger parties quake only because the narrow margin between the two larger ones means that a small party can be a spoiler. Not that the party will have any power. The AFC has been the most powerful 3rd party in recent times and where did the end up?