Youth Party of Slovenia (SMS), a member of the European Greens, decided to look for their MEP candidates with a help of the Facebook. The reasons for such a decision are explained on their web site with the following words (my personal translation):
“Youth Party of Slovenia wants to activate political participation of a European citizen and approach the EU institutions to ALL voters. In SMS we are convinced that through such a competition we can find numerous people who share the same way of thinking, values of modern democratic ideas, such as: care for youth, patience, tolerance, equality, care for minorities and the environment…”
The president of the party and already a candidate for MEP, Darko Kranjec, explains that this is not their first experience with using Facebook for mobilizing people. They actually got this idea from their previous action in which they were gathering signatures for the action “kindergartens for free” during which they got more than 1.000 supporters in 10 days.
(http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Postani-EVROPSKI-POSLANEC/75827234306?sid=a904fd7b2e620fc1f4cd8e9966af01aa&ref=search)
I think the party introduced an interesting idea especially because it has overcome a traditional logic in which parties usually decide about the candidates among their own, already prominent, party members. At the same time, we have to be aware of the fact that even if/when they will find the right person, this is still a very symbolic action which will not result in a victory of the candidate. But anyway, do not you think that this kind of actions could at least open a question of transparency in a selection process inside of the party system and give to non-party candidates more possibilities for inclusion into politics?
(13 votes, average: 3.69 out of 5)
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Sorry for a bad snap shot, don’t really know how to make a better one :)!
I don’t think we fully grasp the importance of the days we live in. In 10-20-30 years from now candidates might probably be selected only in this manner or maybe conventional political parties could dissappear and leave place for more or less spontaneously created fluid political movements, united around an idea.
Thnx, George! I agree with you. Also because a classical parliamentarism seems to be in a crisis. I guess loads of apathy among voters derives also because party system today works as a bussiness firm - loads of form, but not much content. It would be actually a real step forward if the things went into direction that you mentioned.
Libertas also tried to recruit candidates in a number of countries…