I think the government terms/cycle (time between elections for national government) in democracies are too short, to have a good long-term orientation and strategy. Political parties have different opinions / visions about the future, yet their behavior while being elected a very similar. They focus is mostly on the current term till the next election, half a year before every election they stop any slightly controversial moves -not to upset potential voters- and after the election need weeks or months to form a government.
To combat this short-term thinking, I would propose a long-term parliament next to the regular parliament. The regular parliament can keep their 4 year term-time and the long-term parliament is elected every 10 years (to stay longer than two regular parliament terms, but not too long). The advantages of a long-term parliament would be:
- Political discussion can take years to come to a decision to be based on the best possible available and researched data.
- They can set the planning for their thought through decisions, which will be executed by the regular parliament.
- They can discuss and plan topics unfavorable seen in the regular parliament as well as certain industries, organizations (like abandoning fossil fuels and right of assisted dying).
- The regular parliament could focus completely on the day business of a government.
- (long-term) Plans can’t be easily overthrown, like in the US where they cancel or block the other side’s plans.
- Political discussion can become constructive again and collective decision of the majority would overrule the requirement of forming an alliance to have a constant majority in the parliament.
- The aging of the population brings the future orientated youth in a disadvantage in every election. To keep the orientation of the democracy on the future, there is an age restriction for voting only allowing voter from 16 years old until average life expectancy minus one generation (currently ~54 – 58); every 5 years there is an in-between election for the people how turned 16 in the meantime.
- The long-term parliament would give the political security and stability to execute long-term political decisions.
Requirements for the long-term parliament: every parliament member is restricted to a one term max, minimum amount of political parties (≥3), parties should also reach a minimum percentage of total votes (~3%), only the total amount of votes for election are counted (so no vote is lost due to regional votes) and party members don’t have to follow party’s consent.
Originally posted on Reddit by arnelucas, on January 27th 2022; https://new.reddit.com/r/CrazyIdeas/comments/se39q3/better_longterm_orientation_for_democracies_with/
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