What countries have your least favorite party systems?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Inspired by my post in the Malta thread. Basically places where you'd have a tough time finding a party to vote for. Obviously this is excluding dictatorships and psuedo-democracies (such as Russia).

Here's what I say:

Romania - the worst of this problem in Europe. From what I understand, the two main coalitions consist of one being two liberal (European sense of course) parties. That makes sense. On the other hand, the Social Democrats ally with this ultra-socially conservative nutters called the Humanist Party, and the Social Democrats are full of ex-Communist officials and are massively corrupt.

Greece - PASOK is ran by incompetant idiots. ND are the conservatives, enough said. The Communists are well, the Communists . Still the least of many evils, and probably would get my vote lately, rather than sucking it up and voting PASOK like I would've in the past.

Malta - The inspiration for the post. It's either the really really really socially conservative people with way too much Catholic influence, or the guys who are completely unlike the rest of the European left, and want to pull out of the EU and instead align with places like Libya. Yuck.

Ireland - OK, there is one good party, but they're still not one of the major ones. And every other party really really sucks. What a waste, a country with ranked voting where I'd only vote for one party most of the time.

Poland - the only party that doesn't suck is the ex-communist splinter that didn't even get into Parliament. And some of those disturbingly large parties REALLY REALLY REALLY suck (League of Polish Families anyone?)

[Jake]

Canada - The Conservatives are conservative on the wrong issues, the Liberals are just horrible, and the NDP is filled with trash. Bloc would get my vote in Quebec, probably the Greens elsewhere, but I wouldn't like either vote.

South Africa - Nuff said

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The US.

[Hatman 🍁]

While it's not a country, Quebec.

The only non separatist parties are the centre-right Liberals and the Green Party. ick.

[Јas]

Ireland - OK, there is one good party, but they're still not one of the major ones. And every other party really really sucks. What a waste, a country with ranked voting where I'd only vote for one party most of the time.

FTR, which is the party you speak of? Is is Sinn Féin, The Socialist Party, The Labour Party, The Workers Party, The Socialist Workers Party, The Communist Party, Republican Sinn Féin,  The Irish Republican Socialist Party...

[Gabu]

While it's not a country

I don't think Quebeckers would like to hear you say that.

[afleitch]

Scotland

Seriously. The main party, Labour is centre-left, it's coaltion partners, the Liberal Democrats are centre-left, the opposition the SNP are centre left, nationalist but pro-business at least. The Conservatives are the only party of the centre-right and the Greens and Socialists are also to the left along with most of the independents....

[Tory]

Brazil(!!!), South Africa, Israel, Italy, France, Holland, Argentina

[Colin]

Argentina - Justicialist Party is populist, UCR (the main opposition) is mostly centre-left to left, the breakaway from the Justicialist Party lead by Kirchner is left populist, Menem's more neo-liberal party is corrupt. The only party I could vote for is a small party known as Recrear which is made up of free-market ex-UCR politicians but has not yet had a large amount of support.

France - The only party I would have voted for, Liberal Democracy, folded into the UMP several years ago. The UMP is too economically leftist for me to support as are all the other parties.

Japan - Though I like the policies of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party I am very leery of voting for any party that has been in power almost continuously for 50 years. The Democrats seem to leftist for my tastes and most of the minor parties are of a socialist bent.

United States - Two parties, one of which is centre-left the other moving towards becoming Christian Democratic. Both horrible choices in my mind but unlike any other countries on the list there isn't even the possibility that minor parties might get a couple of seats. Horrible, horrible party system.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ireland - OK, there is one good party, but they're still not one of the major ones. And every other party really really sucks. What a waste, a country with ranked voting where I'd only vote for one party most of the time.

FTR, which is the party you speak of? Is is Sinn Féin, The Socialist Party, The Labour Party, The Workers Party, The Socialist Workers Party, The Communist Party, Republican Sinn Féin,  The Irish Republican Socialist Party...

Labour.

Sinn Fein is trash, regarldess of their socialism and all of those Trot parties aren't even viable.

[Hatman 🍁]

While it's not a country

I don't think Quebeckers would like to hear you say that.

hahaha.

Come to think of it, Nunavut and the NWT are even worse. They have no parties!

[Angel of Death]

Every country which does not use proportional representation.

[minionofmidas]

Too many to mention, but yeah the UK's fairly high up.

[YoMartin]

Considering only relevant parties: Bolivia and Mexico. Some countries (the US, for example) I guess I´d be in trouble to vote in certain states but not in others.

Still, though I don´t like the parties, the mexican party system as such works quite well.

[Cubby]

Australia: The Liberal party is actually conservative. They elect a hardcore right winger 4 times in a row (John Howard). Everyone is forced to vote (or pay a fine I think). Labour is a terrible mess, they need to get their act together and find someone besides Kim Beazley as their leader. The voting system doesn't make sense to me, even though Hugh's explained it and I've looked it up, its very complex.

[Jake]

What? How is Alternative Vote confusing. For your constituency, you list the candidates in order of preference and they keep eliminating the lowest vote getter until one candidate has a majority of the vote. The election of Senators is marginally more complicated, but only because of the above the line/below the line voting.

Wikipedia's take on it

[Hatman 🍁]

Now that I think of it, the UK is pretty bad too. I'd vote either Labour or LibDem depending on the candidate or perhaps a smaller party.

[Max]

I really don't like the party system of Belgium, because there are two socialist partys, two liberal partys etc. for the two different groups of population.
Besides there are strong ultra-rightwing parties.

I also hate Israel with its thousands of small religious and nationalist parties.
Don't missunderstand me: I don't hate Israel, but I hate the Israeli party system.

Schwitzerland has four parties of the about same strength, and they are always in coalition with each other. I really don't like that system.

Republik of Ireland, which is a great country, and Russia also have a stupid party system.

[Gustaf]

Eh, is this about party systems (as the headline indicates) or about parties? Because I think most people here missed the point...

[Max]

Eh, is this about party systems (as the headline indicates) or about parties? Because I think most people here missed the point...

You can't divide it. The parties are elements and partially products of the party system

[MaC]

The United States-namely because real competition outside of the main parties is unheard of, not because of the lack of interest in another party, but because the bullsh**t phrase 'wasted vote' that the media likes to portray.  in addition there're draconian ballot-access measures for third parties to get on the ballot and the main parties are welfare queens using taxpayer money to support their candidates.

Also Democrats want to increase the size of government, control your guns, raise taxes and redistribute the money-(pretty much assuming that people can't take care of money for themselves).  Republicans want to wage war on whatever country will gain them points, and they want control in individual social matters.

[Bono]

Austria has really horrible choices.

[Tender Branson]

Austria has really horrible choices.

For example ?

[Bono]

Austria has really horrible choices.

For example ?

Well, the right wing parties are either not right wing at all (People's Party), defunct (Liberal Forum), or overruled by populists(Freedom Party).

[Tender Branson]

Austria has really horrible choices.

For example ?

Well, the right wing parties are either not right wing at all (People's Party), defunct (Liberal Forum), or overruled by populists(Freedom Party).

Well, if you compare our Conservatives with US Conservatives, then they are Liberals But not so liberal: Gay marriage for example is not allowed here in Austria while most other European countries have legalized it. Otherwise they are more center-right than right-wing. You are right, right-wing elements are found in the Freedom Party and the BZÖ only.