Et tu Rosa Ferum?
Well.
Following up on my own personal decision to withdraw from my involvement with the PC Party of Alberta, it appears that something must be in the air in Southern Alberta.
With props to Big City Liberal for commenting on it first, the shit has now hit the fan in the mainstream media, announcing a mass resignation of board members from the Wild Rose Alliance in Little Bow.
According to the reports, 8 of 9 board members for the Wild Rose Little Bow constituency resigned over their perception that the nomination process for their next candidate was strong-armed by the main party executive.
This follows up on an earlier dispute in the Medicine Hat nomination process, where allegations of a quickly called nomination process and a refusal of the new candidate to allow certain people to attend board meetings - resulting in the resignation of secretary Bobbie Dearborn from the constituency.
In the face of all this, the party, and in particular, Danielle Smith, put on a brave face and essentially denied that any problems existed at all.
Same old, same old.
Here's my take.. and this is with reference to all major parties, including the Wild Rose.
To get the job, you need to get elected.
That's understood.
However, when the drive to get elected, when the hunger to "win", becomes the dominant effort of the political process, the losers are the people. And the net result?
- Parties in power refuse to make the right decisions when they may be unpopular, fearing a loss of that power;
- Parties in opposition refuse to acknowledge when the right decisions are made by the party in power, fearing that THEY will not be able to acquire that power;
- When parties on either side of the fence have internal problems - damage control becomes the dominant paradigm, as opposed to problem resolution.
Sadly, it appears the "new kids on the block" are learning the lessons of parties past. That damage control is the rule of the day.
That's unfortunate, because, I think, the public has a great hunger for something new and better.
Something genuine and real.
4 comments:
People like to bash the US political system but if we had the open primary system like they have you would see at least the odd upset and ousting of an incumbant.
This is how Harper runs Conservative Party nominations, and no one complains. Why is it a surprise that the Wildrose does it?
I actually lost interest in the WRA awhile back and took myself off the FN friends list. When Danielle wrote that they party was moving back to 'center right', that first raised my eyebrows. Since then she has been toying with the ideas of post-secondary public funding, not seeming interested in trying to increase private options for basic health care, etc. My partner has stayed on the group and been active debating various topics but he is not thrilled with them anymore either. At first we were hopeful, now we are not so much. It does seem a bit like too much same old same old.
oops I meant FB friends list. too tired this morning to think!
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