Neither left nor right: minor and fringe parties hold Patria’s balance of power

Thanks to proportional representation, minor parties play a key role in Patria and a vote for one of the pint-size parties is almost never a wasted vote. A coalition government, whether led by the Social Democrats, SRM or even the Chakra Party, usually can’t be cobbled together without the support of at least one such party. When a two-thirds majority is needed for ratification of many pieces of legislation, and even for the bills that can be passed with a simple 50% majority, one vote here and one vote there from a fringe or nutbar party can be crucial.

Patria’s Green Party and Libertarian party need no further explanation, as they share the policies and platforms with their macro-national Green and Libertarian counterparts.

The Lilith Party is a party of radical feminists, as hard-left as they come. Real “womyn” only, born with real vulvas and a full set of xx chromosomes. Trans women should steer clear of them. TERFs don’t come any more TERF than the Lilith Party.

There are a few single-issue parties, such as the Chastity Party and Family Values Party whose platforms are pretty much self-explanatory. They have no real raison d’être other than promoting socially conservative causes for the few who actually care about such things as advocating modest dress for women or banning public displays of affection. Local parties that appear on the ballot in only one precinct, such as the Pottsylvanian Alliance and Lazurian Independent Party, exist mainly to represent the interests of Pottsylvania and Lazuria respectively and try to get the precinct a better deal from Castoropolis. Like Canada, Patria’s version of federalism also includes transfer payments or economic subsidies from the federal government in order to help close the gap between the rich precincts such as Caesarea and the poorer ones such as Fredonia.

 

The fringiest of the fringe parties is arguably the Jungle Party, whose leader is the noted sports talk show host Jim Rome. The typical Jungle party voter is an unemployed or minimally employed 30-something male living in his parents’ basement, playing online games, eating leftovers or junk food, and with no girlfriend to speak of. But the party has apparently drawn men who might otherwise vote National Union.

Single-seat “parties of one” are not unusual in Patria’s Congress. In 2018 the Pottsylvanian Alliance, Lazurian Independent Party, Patriots’ Union of Nova Columbia (PUNC, usually pronounced as acronym), Peoples’ Party, Reconstruction Party and Popular Front of Caesarea took one seat each.