Coalition governments and real change
Coalition governments and real change
by Byron27 August 2014
Can
a party that wants fundamental changes in society be a minor
part of a coalition government?
My conclusion is no,
after having been a participant in the Alliance Party’s
implosion after attempting to do so from 1999-2002 as part
of the Labour-led government. But that does not mean that a
minor party can’t be an effective player in parliament for
reforms while continuing to build a movement outside of
parliament as well for real change.
Similar disasters befell radical left or Green parties in many countries. In most cases there existed a moderate centrist Labour or social democratic party that had strong support from working people but was committed to the existing system including the system of worldwide alliances with the US-led western imperial ambitions.
Pressure always comes on the smaller more radical party to oppose the more right wing parties and support the “lesser evil” of social democracy. Many working people who either have illusions that their traditional party will make real change, or simply accept – albeit unenthusiastically – the reality of lesser evilism, will also often want their party to ally with parties to their left rather than their right in the hope of more progressive policies emerging. It is always worth remembering that not all Labour governments are a lesser evil. It would be hard to argue that was true for the 1984-90 Labour government.
This was true in 1999 in New
Zealand. There was genuine enthusiasm when Helen Clark
extended the olive branch to the Alliance Party at its
conference that year and what was effectively an alternative
coalition in waiting won the election.
Alliance leader
Jim Anderton was made deputy prime minister and three others
got cabinet posts, but the party essentially disappeared
from view into Labour’s embraces and its policies were
seen as essentially the same. The government remained
reasonably popular but the Alliance Party’s support
collapsed in the polls. Technically the party retained the
right to differentiate its own position from that of the
larger partner while remaining in cabinet but this was
rarely invoked. Then when the decision was made to send
troops to Afghanistan it provoked a bitter internal fight,
with the vast majority of the party rejecting the decision
by Anderton and a majority of Alliance MP’s to support the
government’s position. The Alliance was eliminated from
parliament at the 2002 election and Anderton’s faction has
simply been absorbed into the Labour Party.
The problem
for a genuinely radical party is that it only has minority
support and cannot impose any significant policy change on a
party committed to the existing system. So long as that
system is based on serving the 1%, only small and relatively
minor progressive changes are achievable. That was the case
for the Alliance, which achieved the establishment of
Kiwibank and Paid Parental Leave and some labour law
reforms, despite significant opposition from elements in the
Labour Party at the time. But these changes weren’t enough
to significantly change the position of working people in
the country. They weren’t enough to give people hope that
unemployment could be eliminated, inequality radically
reduced, democratic control exerted over the key sectors of
the economy.
If the Alliance had remained outside of
cabinet it could probably have negotiated for all the
changes it actually achieved, but remained free to agitate
and mobilise people in the streets for the more radical
changes that are needed to make a real improvement to the
lives of working people.
The Greens will face a similar
challenge if they can achieve a majority able to form a
government with Labour after the next election. The Greens
have already taken the first significant steps to becoming a
“partner” in running the existing system rather than
challenging it when they signed up to the ETS [Emissions
Trading Scheme] as a mechanism to combat climate change.
They know that the ETS, or any other market-based mechanism,
cannot make any real impact in combating a threat to
humanity that has arisen as a consequence of the free market
system in the first place.
Protecting the environment and
protecting the rights and living standards of the vast
majority of people in the world requires the system of
capitalism to be superseded. That requires a radical social
and political movement that aspires to win a majority in the
country – not simply assume the role of “junior
partner” to a party that remains fundamentally committed
to the current system.
The Mana Movement, which is in my
view a system-challenging movement, may also face a similar
problem if the election is close and Labour and the Greens
(and NZ First?) require their vote to form a government.
They too will be in a position to negotiate some reforms
that benefit the people who support them, as part of a
negotiated agreement to allow a Labour-led government to be
formed. By doing so they will respect the fact that for now
they are a minority party and the majority of the people
they want to represent have voted for Labour or the Greens.
That democratic choice can be respected.
At the same time Mana can retain their freedom of criticism and ability to organise at the grass roots for the generally timid reforms to go further, or against any reactionary policies that such a government will inevitably end up promoting. So long as these parties in government are trying to make a system “work” they can’t escape ultimately disappointing their own supporters, because for this system to work it will continue to produce economic crisis, unemployment and environmental destruction. Movements like Mana can then provide a progressive alternative for those people rather than have that disappointment captured by the right.