Yeah I live in Australia where we have preferential voting.
I have always voted left of our major parties, because like the rest of the world, our major “left wing” party is centre right and our right wing is way too far to the right. Everyone right if that is extremely racist or a billionaire. Usually both.
But we have options, and even if the major party wins they have to negotiate with the smaller parties if we’ve won them seats in parliament. Voting for the minor parties and independents first based on policy sends a message that these are the things that matter to us. If they want to win the next election they’ll have to support them or we’ll continue voting for the minor parties.
The liberals (our right wing party) handled covid and the following months so poorly that they were essentially ousted in western Australia. They are so small now that they hold the same amount of power as the minor parties. Labor (the “left wing” major party) won 46 of the possible 59 seats and the liberals only got 7. They’ve had to form a coalition with the slightly more right wing minor party to have any voting power. Which has caused them to slip even further right and lose even more votes in the following local elections.
Yeah I live in Australia where we have preferential voting.
I have always voted left of our major parties, because like the rest of the world, our major “left wing” party is centre right and our right wing is way too far to the right. Everyone right if that is extremely racist or a billionaire. Usually both.
But we have options, and even if the major party wins they have to negotiate with the smaller parties if we’ve won them seats in parliament. Voting for the minor parties and independents first based on policy sends a message that these are the things that matter to us. If they want to win the next election they’ll have to support them or we’ll continue voting for the minor parties.
The liberals (our right wing party) handled covid and the following months so poorly that they were essentially ousted in western Australia. They are so small now that they hold the same amount of power as the minor parties. Labor (the “left wing” major party) won 46 of the possible 59 seats and the liberals only got 7. They’ve had to form a coalition with the slightly more right wing minor party to have any voting power. Which has caused them to slip even further right and lose even more votes in the following local elections.