(Repost from Discord)
It is with great sadness that I make this announcement. After conferring with party chair Celestiam, and conducting a vote with party members after some discussion, the Progressive Party is officially dissolved.
This decision is far from an admittance of defeat or wrongdoing. I believe, and have always believed, that we conducted ourselves with integrity every step of the way. However, it is an admittance that, despite my best wishes, the party system is not beneficial – and, in fact, is detrimental – to the New West Indies.
1. Structural Problems
Parties, IRL and on NationStates, thrive off of being able to run in legislature elections. This simply doesn't and can't happen here. The General Assembly includes every single citizen, and I am not willing to strip away that fact for any reason, and I know many of you wouldn't either. It's a great system that allows for everyone to contribute, as opposed to only prominent party members. Even something like committees would be a bandaid on the elephant in the room – parties have little incentive to function, because the nearest election is every three months.
2. Cultural Paradoxes
Partially due to the above structure, our region's legislators and policymakers in the Executive have never put party above the best policies. PRO's prominent legislators, for example, routinely created bipartisan-backed legislation that benefited the region before the party's manifesto. Furthermore, it's become readily apparent that, whether we agree with criticisms of the PRO party or not, that the political party landscape brings out the worst in people. There are focuses on becoming the opposition for the sake of it, or getting more "CEN" voices into power. While we may disagree, is it an individual problem, or a problem with the system? We can't blame such actions when they are emboldened by a system emphasizing the party label more than the person's merits. The party system, far exceeding the benefits, creates an environment that can breed toxicity, and that is the one factor other than inactivity that can kill a region for good.
It is true that we can't control what the LibDems or Centrists would do. But, combined with some new government policies (to-be-announced), we have concluded that they would likely fall out of favor, since some of their main priorities was opposing the majority. Regardless, we can only control our own destinies, so we will no longer contribute to a broken system.
