After looking at democracy, attention turns to the star teams in the sport of representative democracy: the parties.
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As this only counts parties that won seats (and Independents), it doesn’t count all parties that failed to win seats. So the figures underestimate the number of active parties.
Also, electoral pacts between two or more parties are counted as a single party. For example, Croatia’s ruling (as of 2020) centre-right HDZ is made up of four separate parties, while the main opposition group (Rivers of Justice) has seven member parties.
All of the countries use (at least partially) proportional voting systems (Part III).
The broad trend is that the number of viable/electable political parties tends to increase after independence, though not always by very many. It usually takes several electoral cycles to see a full diversification.
Counting the most recent national elections in isolation, on average roughly one party or group for every 580,000 people won seats – theoretically meaning Wales could expect up to 6 parties to win seats to the Senedd on average; the closest we’ve got to that is 5 parties in 2016.
If you discount Ukraine (because it has a much bigger population than the rest), the party: population ratio falls to 380,000 – supporting a Senedd with up to 8 parties/groups.
Several factors may impact the number of political parties, or whether existing parties would consolidate into fewer, but more effective, parties or political alliances:
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What new political parties could emerge in a post-independence Wales?
The would probably have snappier Welsh language names but as a bit of fun – and based on what’s happened in other countries – what new parties could we expect to pop up?
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Would more political parties be a good thing?
In terms of pluralism, yes. Though every part of the political and ideological spectrum is represented by a party in Wales already, it’s just the “Big Three” cover more ground.
If a wider range of views were represented in the Senedd and at council level, it could improve democracy by giving people more voting options.
As a result, turnout might increase and wasted votes decrease – though it would be at least partially dependent on the voting system (Part III). More parties also means more competition for the “Big Three”, providing more criticism and scrutiny from angles different to those we’re used to (and probably bored of).
There are downsides too.
Having too many parties represented in a national parliament can lead to political instability, particularly if the elections become inconclusive – as we often see in the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium. It could lead to multiple re-runs of elections if coalitions can’t be formed, fuelling electoral fatigue.
Where they don’t win majorities, “bigger” parties would have to horsetrade with very small parties to win votes. That could mean working with parties that are a little more extreme than the centre ground would prefer; we’ve seen that with populist and nativist parties in places like Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand.
Conclusions
At present, the Welsh electorate faces two choices in the Senedd: Labour governing alone or Labour governing as the lead party in a coalition.
Post-independence that could change into:
- A majority or minority government led by Labour and/or a successor to Labour.
- A left-of-centre coalition made up of two or three parties. This may lead to eventual referendums on rejoining the EU and republicanism (if neither happens before independence).
- Centrist and centre-right coalitions formed by horse-trading between populist minor parties and formal electoral pacts between leaders who are on the same wavelength – though such parties would likely have more success at a local level if they would be able to tap into newly-amplified resentment against a “distant Cardiff Bay”.
- Occasional disruptive success by Unionist-leaning populist and “None of the Above” parties due to protest voting, which could lead to early elections if no stable coalition could be formed.
- We could see more confidence motions, coalitions formed at short notice and shorter government terms; the idea of someone serving as First Minister for 9 or 10 years without challenge would be chucked out the window.
- The level of scrutiny, press coverage and interest in Welsh politics might increase, but whether governance will improve would ultimately still be down to the same old problem of how we choose and who we choose at the ballot box (Part III).
