1. Strengthening direct democracy; 2. strengthening participatory democracy; 3. improving representative democracy (electoral system and political parties); 4. democratization of information and communication; 5. Democratization of the judicial system. Significant social change has been hampered by the failure of political parties to structure political competition in such a way that the interests of poor and marginalized sectors can be represented. The quality of the election depends on the political parties, the main organizations that structure electoral competition (Journal of Democracy, 1999:133). In the NGO sector – and particularly among grassroots movements defending the interests of the majority of the population – political reforms are seen in a broader context. It necessarily aims to promote changes in the political system, political culture, society and the State. In short, political reform must be understood as a reform of the decision-making process itself, which in turn implies a reform of power and the way it is exercised. Democratic principles and systems A political party is a group of people who come together to run for office and take power in government.
Every political party has ideas and programs that serve society as a whole. They try to convince people that their policies are superior to those of others. They want to put their policies into practice by gaining public support in elections. Political parties reflect the fundamental political divisions of a society. All parties support a certain segment of society, which leads to cooperation. They define the electorate a party represents, the policies it supports and the interests it defends. Three elements make up a political party. However, in Clingman v.
Beaver (2005), the court upheld a system of semi-closed primaries in Oklahoma that limited who could vote in a primary. The Supreme Court held that the law did not interfere with the rights of the First Amendment parties to such an extent that it even required rigorous scrutiny. As a result of these decisions, it appears that political parties have rights of association, but it is not always clear who can assert them – party members or leaders. One of the places where we should look for these problems is our system of relations between local and central governments. With the exception of the Marcos years 1972-86, the pattern was established in central-local relations during the American colonial period. They have a powerful chief executive with enormous fiscal powers and patronage, a position modeled on the colonial governor general. But because you don`t have a consistent and stable political party system, you also have a president who depends on local political leaders to mobilize votes and implement central government policies. So they have equally powerful presidents and local bosses (albeit at different stages of the political cycle) – a strange political system that is neither centralized nor decentralized.
The public perception of our political parties is, to say the least, rather ruthless. “Our political parties do not defend anything. They have different names, but they are practically the same. And politicians have no loyalty to their parties; They are loyal only to themselves. So they rush from one party to another, like so many butterflies and bees in a flower garden. (Neal Cruz, “Don`t Change the Charter, We May Get a Worse One,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 23, 2002) We do not have to agree with Mr. Cruz`s offensive cynicism about parties. But it would be correct to say that its assessment, even if formulated with more caution, is widely accepted. There are many reasons for the reform of the 1987 Constitution.
Some of the reasons are related to legal weaknesses such as ambiguities in the process of change itself. Others concern provisions that have not been implemented for fifteen years because they require the implementation of laws that our legislator has not adopted. The main reasons relate to a number of proposed amendments to reform the government and the political system as a whole. What has not been discussed is what changes can be made to improve our political parties. A shift to a parliamentary form of government should therefore also produce more programmatically and organizationally strong political parties as one of its products. This, of course, will not guarantee competent, let alone democratic, parties, either internally or in their governance. This is the task of reformers who decide to build parties. Whether or not we create more democratic parties ultimately depends on the electorate. Our electoral system and the very conduct of elections have been one of the most important factors shaping political parties.
The highly personalized nature of parties is partly explained by the fact that individual candidates are elected on a first-past-the-post basis. “In elections, it is not so much the political parties that are the real mobilization organizations, but the electoral machine of the candidate and the network of relatives, friends, political associates and allies.” (David, 1994:1) With community, power and family status at stake at the base of the electoral system, all means, including fraud and violence, are used to achieve victory. The party list system introduced by the 1987 constitution offers experience in proportional elections. But the system is so convoluted that it can hardly be taken as an indication of the potential of PR systems. For starters, the 1987 Constitution mixes the conflicting requirements of proportional representation and sectoral representation into the narrow political space of 20% of seats in the House of Representatives. Congress then exacerbated the problems by limiting the number of seats a single party can win to three. The Supreme Court then exacerbated the situation by imposing a seat allocation formula that ensures that only a few of the available seats will be allocated. Contrary to the current buzzword that strengthens civil society and NGOs, there is no substitute for the role that well-institutionalized and programmatic political parties can play in promoting development and democratic goals. Gabriella Montinola explains: Faced with this situation, how can we design new ways of making policies? How can new democratic institutions be created? Popular organizations and popular movements must answer these questions, because most political parties are exclusively concerned with the struggle against elections. How can democracy be radicalized and further coordinated with the system as it is, with its political parties and elections, for example? One strategy has been to create nuclei or sectors within the parties themselves, but this approach has proved fragile.